


Head Over Heels

by metaphors



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Jenna is the best girl friend ever (or not), Josh is popular and a cool punk, Josh is too perfect to be healthy though, M/M, Tyler has a stupid crush, Tyler hates Jenna, Tyler is so gay, everybody loves him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2018-04-06 05:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 38,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4209483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metaphors/pseuds/metaphors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tyler Joseph was your average social awkward high school kid. Too careless to wake up early to arrive school in time, too shy to have more than two friends, too skinny to be in the basketball team, even though he was a frickin' god playing it and, of course, too stupid to ask his crush out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!  
> I'm really enjoying writing this so I hope enjoy reading it just as much :)  
> Stay unlit

Tyler Joseph was your average social awkward high school kid. Too careless to wake up early to arrive school in time, too shy to have more than two friends, too skinny to be in the basketball team, even though he was a frickin' god playing it and, of course, too stupid to ask his crush out.

Well... maybe he wasn't that stupid, considering who his crush was: Joshua Dun. The guy who called himself Dj Spooky Jim at his radio channel. Well, opposite to what you might think, Josh Dun was not the typical music geek that had his own cool radio channel, although he owned enough band t-shirts to keep half of the American homeless population warm and too many punk rock music CD's to be healthy. Josh Dun was not only the most adored person of Tyler's, not only the most adored person of the school, he was probably the most adored person of Ohio. Everybody, and I mean, _everybody_ loved him: he had received countless merit awards and was the student's most wanted tutor, for having the highest grades and for being so nice and fun; he was the captain of the school's soccer team and the champion 2 years in a row of the town's skateboarding competition; had recently officially joined the 'Friends with Hands' volunteer group, even though he had been volunteering for has long as Tyler can remember, from helping old ladies crossing the street to assist doctors and nurses at the local hospital, he was now officially changing the world with his bright smile and sexy red hair; once Josh even saved a cat from a burning house and had the mayor meeting him in person to thank him for risking his life to save the poor soul.

But most important, Joshua played drums. And oh, _ooohh God_... the way he hit the drums with so much passion, the drops of sweat that dripped through his neck and his shirtless chest, muscles that Tyler dreamed of tracing with his fingers and tongue and place kisses all the way down..., his strong arms... again, his muscles clinching every time they moved up and down, slamming his drums... oh how safe would Tyler feel with those arms around his skinny body...

Josh practiced every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday after school. At exactly 5 pm there he was, opening the door of the music classroom, ready to hit those drums as hard as he could. But of course Tyler _didn't_ knew that... what?! Of course he didn't! Oh come on, he _always_ arrives his Friday piano lessons on time... and he definitely does _not_ miss the bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he just enjoys his 30 minutes walk to his house... in the middle of the rainy season... Yeah.

Ok, so what? It's not that he had joined 'Friends with Hands' a couple of weeks previously just to see Josh's back muscles clinch every time he bent down to plant one more gracious yellow flower in the park's garden. Because he totally _didn't_ do that and ended up picking trash and dog poop instead of taking care of the garden like Josh. _Totally didn't_.

So what? It was just an innocent crush, he wasn't obsessed, Jesus Christ, give the guy a break.

Besides, you can't really blame him, Joshua was a walking and breathing piece of art. I mean, look at him now: black skinny jeans that seemed to tight for _Tyler's_ own good, black My Chemical Romance t-shirt falling loosely on his sculpted body, mouth with kissable red lips moving as he excitedly talked with his friend, smiling eyes twinkling like LA night lights, hands holding a couple of drumsticks and drumming them on the lunch table, creating the most flawless beat Tyler has ever heard... God he would do anything to have Josh's mouth shut by slamming his lips on-

"TYLER!"

Startled, Tyler let out a high pitched scream and before he could make out what had happened, his elbow of the arm that had been holding his chin slipped on the table and, not capable of controlling himself, his head fell, face right on his lunch. He then remembered why he hadn't touched his food when the disgusting taste of the uneaten, almost still frozen meatballs and uncooked spaghetti filling his mouth.

His friend Mark started laughing uncontrollably and Tyler slowly raised his filthy head to glare at him, making his best to make a point by appearing threatening and looking like Mark would regret ever being born, but it only ended up making his friend laugh harder. "Dude" he tried to say in the middle of his laughing sobs "you got something" he tried to continue, gesturing to his own face, but not being capable to talk due to his state "you got something - oh my God - your nose" he threw his head back for a second "you got something on your, on your nose!"

Tyler furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and brought a hand up to his nose when he suddenly felt something long, thin and sticky. He widened his eyes in horror as he pulled out a small thread of spaghetti from inside his nose. Watching this only made Mark laugh impossibly harder. Disgusted, Tyler whipped his face with a napkin.

"Oh my God, Tyler" Mark said, trying to bring his breath and heart beat back to normal, he placed a hand on his chest "Oh my God"

Tyler rolled his eyes.

"I'm starting to think that guy is bad luck, man." Mark chuckles, raises an eyebrow and smirks.

Tyler frowns "why?"

"Why?!" the other seems surprised "First, you start missing your bus and being late to your piano lessons, then you accidently apply to pick up dog poop and look at you now!"

Tyler scoffs but before he could say something, a smiling blonde girl sits next to him, bumping her shoulders on his and settling down her tray of food with a thud. "What did I miss?" she smiled widely and looking from one boy to the other.

"Tyler was staring again."

"What a surprise" she replied, sarcasm dripping from her mouth.

"Yeah but this time he got it down and dirty." Mark smirked "Literally."

The girl looked confused at Tyler, ready to ask but mumbled a small "oh", seeing a trade of red sauce in the guy's forehead. She laughed and picked up her napkin to wipe it out.

"Damn Tyler, you have to do something about this." She giggled.

Tyler sighed. "I know, Jenna, I'll just pass by the bathroom in a minute."

"No, I mean, this" Jenna gestured to Josh, now standing up, laughing when one of his friends playfully smacked the back of his head, Josh smacked him back before bending down to pick up his skateboard. Oh look at that... his muscles again! "Tyler!" She brought him back to reality "This is getting ridiculous. Why don't you just talk to him?"

"It's not that simple."

"Yes it is, Tyler, you've been head over heels for the guy for almost two years!" She held up two fingers, sticking them in front of his face.

"One year and four months" Tyler muttered, avoiding her eyes "and I'm not 'head over heels'" he air quoted with his fingers "he's just cute, that's all." He shrugged like it was no big deal.

"Yeah, cute enough for you to dream about banging him." Mark smirked again. Tyler tilted his head, looking bored at him. "What?! The walls are pretty thin. ' _Oh Josh! Fuck! Ugh! Josh! Harder! Please!_ '" Mark mimicked Tyler's voice in a girly tone and ran a hand through his own chest to emphasize it. Gasping, Tyler threw him some spaghetti but he miraculously managed to dodge it.

Could Mark really hear him doing those... things to himself? He was starting to regret agreeing on sharing an apartment with the guy.

"Anyway" Jenna dragged the last syllable for two seconds, obvious disgusted splattered all over her face. She turned to Tyler. "You have to - no - you _are_ going to do something. The talent show is in two weeks and you _are_ going to participate. Therefore, you _are_ going to ask Josh to be your drummer."

Tyler's heart jumped out of his chest and his eyes popped out of his face. No. Nonono. There was no way in hell he was going to do that.

"There is no way in hell I'm going to do that." Tyler told her seriously, getting up. He was not going to participate on the talent show and he definitely was not asking Josh to play with him. Not in a billion years. No.

"Oh _yes, you are_ , buddy." She glared. He gulped.

"No, I'm not." He insisted. "Jenna, you know how terrified I am of singing in public. Besides, I can't just approach Josh like 'Hey bro, we just met and all, but I've been secretly watching you play drums after school and I think you're pretty good at it so I want you to play with me for the talent show'."

"AH!" Mark suddenly shouted, getting up and sticking a finger in Tyler's direction "So you _admit_ you watch him!"

Jenna blinked, looking up at him, while a soft shade of red crept up Tyler's cheeks.

"What a creep, man." Mark's face turned from triumphant to weirded out as he whispered and he sat back, staring off into space.

"Ok then" Jenna ignored her friend once again "Tyler, but that's not a problem." She grinned.

Oh.

Tyler knew that face.

That face was not good.

"You'll have to start being friends with him." she explained. Tyler looked down at her, a burning feeling in his throat. "Best friends, bros. Create bonds" she clasped her hands together and shook them "make roots be born out of your endearing relationship."

Tyler raised an eyebrow, looking at her amused. "And how am I supposed to 'bond' with him?"

"Through sex!" Mark threw his arms up in the air.

"Josh is a tutor and you have astronomical bad grades at Math. So there, sign up to be his tutee."

Tyler scoffed, still amused, and grabbed his tray. "Yeah _sure_ , I'll go do that as soon as I clean my face in the bathroom, _on the opposite direction_ of the library."

Not catching his sarcasm, Jenna smiled sweetly and waved with her hand. "Oh no need to do that, honey. I already did." Her smile had never seemed so wide. "You actually start today. So don't forget to be at the library at half past four."


	2. Tutoring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is bad and I'm sorry. But I literally don't know what I'm doing...

Tyler hates Jenna.

And he hopes she knows it.

He thinks he made it pretty obvious by not lending her his spare pen when she had asked him to borrow it earlier at History class.

He didn't even say goodbye to her.

So yeah, he's almost sure she knows.

He nervously enters the library, the pleasant scent of old and new books running inside his nose immediately. The library used to be his safe haven, his favorite place to hide, right after his tree house, obviously, where he spent most of the time that was not "stalking" Josh. But yeah, _used to be_. Because he was pretty sure it would no longer be it after today.

He greeted Ms Dawson, the woman that worked there, and sighed. He was so gonna make a complete fool of himself... He looked for Josh among the teenagers sitting on the tables but there was no sign of the read head. A bit relieved, Tyler choose a desk too and sat down. He took out his sketchbook to finish a drawing he had been working on. Minutes later he heard someone clear their throat. Tyler looked up to see who it was but his mouth dropped open at the sight of the one and only Josh Dun. He blinked, feeling sweat forming on his forehead, and just stared at the guy, mouth opening and closing, unable to say a thing. That's when he noticed Josh's eyes were not placed on his as well, but were looking down at something. He seemed curious, amused and weirded out at the same time. Tyler furrowed his eyebrows and looked down to see what was bothering the boy. His eyes landed on his sketchbook.

Oh

Well

...

Shit

A flawless drawing of Joshua Dun and half of his luxurious muscled chest was splashed on the paper with pencil graphite.

How convenient.

Tyler quickly closed the book and clumsily stuffed it inside of his bag. His face hurt from the inflammatory burning blush that was formed on his cheeks.

"Hmm" he saw Josh stiffen awkwardly.

_Good job, Tyler. Fantastic job, really._

_You should give yourself a medal._

_And stick it up your ass._

"Tyler, right?"

He nodded, not finding the courage to speak.

"Well, I'm Josh" the other introduced himself, holding out a hand for Tyler to shake. Tyler was tempted to reply "I know" as he hesitantly shook hands with him (electricity and fireworks exploding from the contact), but decided against it. Not only for not being actually able to say a word, but also to give him the satisfaction of thinking he was not the most popular guy of Ohio.

Josh sat down in front of him and the two of them stared at each other for what seemed like ages. "You're not much of a talker, are you?"

Tyler was surprised Josh hadn't brought the sketch up. He was expecting him to freak out or be mad, but this surprising attitude was both a relief and a total pain in the ass.

"Not really." Tyler managed to mutter, his voice breaking. He was not lying but was not exactly saying the truth either. Yes, he didn't talk much, specially not with strangers, even though Josh was anything but a stranger to him, but when you really get to know him you see that Tyler's the type of guy that can't shut up for years, especially if he's excited about something.

"Wait, I know you!" Josh screamed excitedly, just to have Ms Dawson shushing him, bringing her horrendous old skinny fingers with red nail polish to her crunched bright red lips and accidentally spitting to the air. Tyler shivered at the sight. "Sorry, Ms Dawson." Josh whisper-shouted, giving her thumbs up. _Oh imagine that beautiful finger wrapped in Tyler's li-_ "I know you!" He repeated, now quietly, but still looking excited. How adorable. Tyler resisted the urge to reach forward and pinch Josh's fluffy cheeks. They seemed so soft...

Wait

How did he knew him?

Had he seen him around?

Did he also have a crush on Tyler?

Does that mean that they can have heavenly rough sex and then walk off to the sunset, hand in hand, marry and be together forever and happily ever after?

Or had he caught Tyler watching him play drums, like the creep he was?

Oh no, Tyler was dead. He was going to die alone and as virgen as a chicken (although he if someone asks, he totally fucked the pizza guy - long story).

Josh was going to scream at him and ignore Ms Dawson telling him to shut up, and he was going to literally punch the _crushiness_ away from Tyler. Repeatedly.

At least Tyler would get to know what Josh's hands felt like before he died. _Josh's big rough hands, delicately around his throat as he pounded on-_

"You're a member of 'Friends with Hands'!" that was good too "I've seen a picture of you hanging on the wall. You help clean the park, right?"

Josh has seen a picture of him. Oh my God.

Tyler nodded.

"Oh man, you must be really nice to accept picking up trash." Josh's beautiful eyes twinkled with sympathy "I couldn't do that, even if they gave me free Taco Bell for the rest of my life." He laughed and Tyler awkwardly laughed too.

"Yep, that's me, always available to clean whatever you tell me to. Need your toilet cleaned? Don't worry, Tyler Joseph is on his way to help!" Tyler smiled and talked like he was doing a TV commercial.

_What the fuck are you doing, Joseph?!_

"Sick" Josh smiled. Tyler blushed like a tomato but smiled back, because who wouldn't? Josh's smile was the most beautiful thing Tyler has ever laid eyes on. It was so pure and honest, so comforting.

Josh opened his bag to take out the Maths books and the calculator. Tyler mimicked him, hands shaking.

"Ok, so where do you have more difficulties on?"

Tyler felt ashamed saying it. "Everything."

Josh breathily chuckled. "Well but we need to start with something. What do you wanna do?"

_Slam you on this desk and swallow that adorable stupid smile out of your lips._

Wow, easy there, tiger! Easy! Where did that come from?

Tyler shrugged. Josh sighed and took a look at the Maths book until he settled down with something for them to study.

Tyler tried his best to focus on Josh's explanation and not get too distracted with the way his lips moved. Since now he had a tutor, he was actually going to try and take this as a chance to improve his grades. Tyler might have a crush but he was not dumb to the point of not caring about his school conduction.

And by the looks of it, rumors were right about Josh being a great tutor. He really knew what he was talking about and explained everything with every possible and useful details. Tyler saw himself, even though not completely, understanding more and more of the concept of those exercises. Josh assured him that with a little more tutoring Tyler would be a Math genius. Tyler, the sensitive son of bitch he was, of course, blushed at the innocent comment.

"There" Josh said, smiling once again, as he collected his things "this was great, Tyler. I can see you going far with these lessons but you cannot use only these to study, you have to open your books at home too, ok?"

Tyler nodded eagerly, hugging his sketchbook tightly his his harms.

"Well, see you tomorrow, Tyler."

Tyler waved, smiling and Josh started to leave but turned back around before he completely disappeared.

"By the way, I like you're tattoos, they're sick."

With that he walked out of the library, leaving Tyler confused. Because he had been wearing a long sleeved hoodie and doesn't remember ever being shirtless around him.

So how exactly the fuck did the motherfucker knew about his tattoos?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *walks out with head down*


	3. I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream Cause I Have a Crush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I want to thank you all for the lovely coments, you have no idea how much they mean to me. Thanks for all the support, I love you all!
> 
> Stay unlit! |-/

"So how did it go?" A squeaky voice was heard. Tyler closed his locker to see Jenna jumping up and down with her hands on her mouth. He sighed. He was still mad at her.

"I don't know..."

"Ok but what did you do?" Jenna screamed, putting her hands on his shoulders and shaking him.

Why was she so excited about this now? Tyler had been fan girling about Josh for a year and four months and the only thing she did was rolling her eyes and say 'yo Tyler, stop drooling over your boyfriend, you're wetting my leg'. And don't get him wrong, he loved Jenna and she was a great girl, but her supportive side over his love life wasn't very transparent... Neither was Mark's.

"We studied." Tyler answered in an obvious tone because, really, Josh was his tutor, what else could they have done? Certainly not the rough sex Tyler has been dreaming about all his life... And of course he wasn't going to talk about the fact that Josh had seen one of his Josh drawings (not that he had many... _no_.) or the fact that he completely embarrassed himself by commercializing his toilet cleaning help. She didn't need to know that.

"Just that?" her face fell "You didn't talk? About anything at all?"

"Not about anything that wasn't numbers related, I'm sorry to disappoint you." Tyler started walking towards their first class. Jenna ran after him, her floral high heels clicking on the floor as she yelled a quick 'wait'.

"Look, Jenna, I don't think we're actually going somewhere. Clearly the guy doesn't want to have anything to do with me besides helping me study."

"Your constant insecurity both amuses me and worries me, Joseph." she put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm serious."

"How can you know that? You've only had one lesson with him!"

"Oh trust me" he raised his eyebrows and looked sadly at her "after that, he won't even want to look at me."

Jenna frowned and stopped walking, grabbing his arm for him to do the same. Tyler sighed and looked down, avoiding her eyes by any costs. He didn't want to tell her. He was not going to.

"Why? What happened?"

_I didn't kiss him, that's what happened..._

"Lets just say I made a complete fool of myself and probably weirded him out." He shrugged. But the pain in his heart was almost unbearable. There goes his chance of having his not so innocent virginity taken by the hottest guy in the universe.

"Aww Tyler, honey, come here" she smiled apologetically at him and embraced him in a hug. Tyler had no choice but to hug back and hide his sad face on her neck, breathing in the familiar scent of roses. Jenna's hugs had always been confortable and the most comforting thing in the world (right after shaking Joshua Dun's perfect hands). _Stop being such a light hearted, Joseph, you're still mad a her, remember?!_

"Aww group hug!" someone yelled and then long skinny arms suddenly wrapped around Tyler and Jenna. Jenna looked up to see Mark with a goofy smile and eyes closed, head resting on Tyler's. She laughed and let the warmth of her two best friends consume her. Tyler, already knowing who those arms belonged to, didn't move, also escaping between the lovely embrace.

But then Tyler felt a tap on his shoulder. He ignored it at first, assuming it was either Mark just messing with him or some random person who had accidentally touched him. So he focused on his friends and their lovely friendship. Before feeling another tap and someone clear their throat. He frowned. Did someone want to talk with him? Like for real? Nah. He sighed and lifted his head from Jenna's shoulder to see what was going on. Who the heck would want to-

Jesus Christ

 

 

MAYDAY

MAYDAY

FUCKING MAYDAY

MAY-MOTHERFUCKING-DAY

SAVE YOURSELF

FUCK THE CHILDREN AND THE WOMEN

TYLER FIRST

 

Two words: Jo-shuaDun

Yes.

And it was in the hit of the moment, really. Tyler never intended to do that. It was just so much pressure upon him, so much thrill and excitement. He couldn't contain himself. Don't blame him. It was not his fault, he just needed to let all the rushing emotions out. Literally. So he simply let out the highest scream ever produced in the entire world in all these centuries. No big deal. It was fine.

Though he sounded more like a dying goat.

No big deal.

Just literally everyone silently looking at him, frozen.

"Goddamit Tyler!" Mark cursed at the top of his lungs pulling away from the hug almost quicker than the light velocity and covered his burning ears with his hands, shutting his eyes tightly. "Do you want me to go fucking deaf or simply explode?!" Aww look, he's angry. "God!" He screamed one more time. "What happened?" As soon as he opened his eyes, they landed on Joshua Dun, also taking his hands from over his ears and (adorably - thinks Tyler) opening one eye and than the other to look (even more adorably - again, Tyler's thoughts) at Tyler _fucking_ Joseph.

_So... on a scale of 1 to 10, how much was Tyler screwed, exactly?_

Josh stared at Tyler and didn't move for a long, _long_ time. For a moment, Tyler thought he had actually blown up Josh's ears completely, causing him to be deaf. It was the only racional explanation for him to be so quiet.

"Uh" Tyler hoped that sound was just Josh checking if his audition still worked and did not mean that he was speechless because of what just happened. "hmm" _Yeah, ok Josh, I get it, you're not deaf, so can you please just say something?_ "Hey?"

_Well... Josh, honey *laughs* being awkward is my thing, not yours..._

Jenna sighed and turned to the still quiet group of students on the hall. "Ok folks, you can all return to your business now, thank you, it was nice talking to you, bye." With that, the crowd slowly started do disperse, though still unsure of what had just happened.

Tyler gulped, looking at Josh. "Hey"

Josh crunched his nose, his nose ring going up and down and making Tyler almost drool over himself.

"I'm going to the bathroom." Jenna announced "You coming, Mark?"

"What, me?" He pointed at himself and widened his eyes "I don't-"

"I said, are you coming, Mark?" She had her eyes wide open, looking pointedly at him and Mark's mouth formed an 'oh' and he quickly nodded before following her.

"So" Tyler nervously grabbed his hair and laughed "you wanted something?"

"Uh?" _Ok, why was this guy only making weird sounds instead of pronouncing words?_ "Oh yeah, yeah." _Oh look, he's smiling! He's so cute._  "I just wanted to make sure you're coming for your lesson, today. Wouldn't want to miss it."

 _That's it?_ He had rudely interrupted Tyler's friendship moment, touched his shoulder with those silky long fingers and made Tyler almost have an heart attack _because he just wanted to make sure he was going to his tutoring lesson today_?

Tyler blinked in confusion. "Yes, of course I am."

The red haired grinned and scratched his neck, nodding. "Cool, yeah, ok" he dropped his hand back and grabbed the straps (full of ACDC, Blink 182 and other bands stickers) of his black bag with both hands, starting to walk backwards "See ya."

He waved and sprinted away.

 

* * *

 

"He walked away? Just like that?"

"Yep"

"Wow"

"Yeah"

Tyler told Jenna. He told Mark too, but he was just too busy trying to spin the pen on his fingers, obviously not having one successful attempt. So yeah, Tyler told Jenna. Not because he actually wanted to but because the girl could be very persuasive and he always ended up doing what she wanted. His current situation, for example - she made him talk to Josh, just like the cruel woman she was. And he hated her for that. Besides, the teacher had left the classroom to do something he didn't quite knew because he was more preoccupied with his love life, so he had an opportunity to groan loudly and Jenna asked him what had happened.

"I think I scared him away for real today, though." Tyler smacked his head on the table "What did I do? My life is officially over, tell my parents and siblings I love them."

Jenna rolled her eyes and grabbed his hair, pulling his head up. Tyler quietly winced in pain and glared at her.

"Tyler, although I must admit that it was kind of funny" she bit her lip, trying not laugh.

"Correction: the most hilarious situation I have ever witnessed and probably will ever witness." Mark laughed, dropping his pen for the millionth time. Since when was he listening?

"Ok yeah, agreed" she laughed "but despite that, I wouldn't be so dramatic about it. Everything's fine, Josh is a good kid, he won't make fun of you."

"Yeah, he won't because I won't leave my bedroom ever again. I don't care, I'll just live of Taco Bell and broken dreams."

Jenna sighed, now a bit annoyed. "Put your shit together, Tyler. You won't do that, you'll conquer your fears, let this behind and move on."

"Josh hates me!" He cried, totally ignoring her and threw his head back on the table, sobbing. Jenna grabbed his hair again to pull him back up.

"Stop saying that, Jesus! He doesn't hate you!

"Tyler, dude, she's right" Mark said, trying to spin the pen one more time, but _surprisingly_ letting it fall. "Today you're going to be fine, no need to get all chickened out."

Today? What?

Oh.

He had tutoring.

He let his head fall on the table for the third time, sobbing again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you.


	4. Swinging Problems

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments and kudos are like... sunshine, cotton candy and Joshua. Yeah.
> 
> Tyler is a lil less awkward on this one than the others... just a little...
> 
> This one is also shorter.
> 
> I still don't know what I'm doing.

Josh was sitting on the same table they had been the day before. A white You Me At Six shirt wrapped around his body, head bobbing to the music coming out of his head phones and reading the most recent edition of his favorite punk rock magazine. He drummed his fingers occasionally on the table along with the beat of the music and mouthed all the lyrics perfectly with his once pierced lips. (Tyler missed that piercing... he used to wonder what was like to kiss him with that lip ring, he would play with it, roll his tongue around it and playfully pull it softly, carefully not to hurt him.)

Tyler observed him from distance, behind a bookshelf, eyeing through a gap between a couple of books.

"Nope, I'm not doing this." He said, tuning around, only to be stopped by a pair of arms.

"Yes, you are." Mark told him, looking straight at Tyler's eyes, seriously.

Tyler was too nervous, not able to confront Josh after the morning incident. His heart was racing on his chest and his hands shaking. "No, I'm not."

Mark sighed, annoyed. _Ok, why does everybody looks so annoyed around me recently?_ "Tyler! I'm sick of this! Jenna's sick of this. You have to man up and confront the guy! You can't be afraid forever, or he's eventually gonna get a girlfriend" he said putting his hands on Tyler's shoulders "Or whatever, because I honestly don't know the way he swings."

And then, reality just hit him right in the fucking face. Mark was right.

"Oh my God! You're right!" Tyler gasped, putting a hand over his mouth.

"Thank you!" Mark desperately said and let go of Tyler, proud of himself.

"I don't even know if he's gay!" Tyler screamed (not loud enough to have Ms Dawson shushing him though), looking terrified.

"What?" Mark asked confused "No, Tyler, that's not the point."

But the crazy guy interrupted him. "But don't you get it, Mark?" Tyler grabbed his friend's face between his hands and crushed his cheeks together, making his lips pop out of his face "All this time I've been living this romanticized idea that he could actually have feelings for me one day, to just come upon the conclusion that Joshua may not be fricking gay!" He rested his forehead against Mark's, looking him in the eyes and squeezing his face harder. "My life is a lie, Mark!" Suddenly he gasped again, quickly letting go of the other's face like he had some kind of contagious disease. "If that really is your name! Is your name Mark or have you been lying too?"

Mark looked at him weirdly like he had two heads. Was he being serious?

"Confess, right know!" Tyler raised his voice and Mark shushed him, looking over his shoulder to check if Ms Dawson was anywhere around.

"Oh my fucking God, dude! I've known you since we were kids, why would I lie about my own fucking name?!"

"I don't know, you could be some kind of secret agent sent to kill me and my family..." He mumbled.

Well that escalated quickly...

Mark stared at him with his mouth opened, not knowing what to say. Sometimes he actually wondered if his best friend had serious mental problems (no offense to those poor diseased wicked souls).

"No" he heard himself dumbly respond "no, I'm not." He blinked on his spot.

Tyler nodded.

Wow.

"Ok, now that it's all cleared out, you're gonna go up there and face your fears. You're gonna talk to him. Have a _normal_ conversation, don't forget." he looked knowingly at Tyler "And don't think about the fact that he may not be gay, ok? Just go with it. Whatever your heart tells you to do, do it."

_My heart tells me to push Josh against a wall and make out with him, am I allowed to do that on our second lesson?_

Tyler sighed and nodded. Mark smiled and patted his shoulder. "Now go get him, tiger."

Tyler turned around to look at Josh one more time. He had stopped listening to music but was still reading the same magazine. Tyler closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

_You can do this, Tyler. Just go with the flow._

He walked out from behind the bookshelf and up to his sitting tutor. He stood still, battling with himself whether he should wait for Josh to notice him or call for his attention.

_Whatever your heart tells you to do, Tyler._

"You Me At Six rock" he tried softly. Josh looked up, smiling when he saw Tyler. He glanced at his own t-shirt and chuckled quietly.

"Yeah, they do."

Tyler smiled and placed his things on the table to sit down in front of him. He watched Josh's chest slowly move up and down with his breaths. He was so peaceful. He could bring comfort to everyone just by existing.

Suddenly Tyler felt a rush of confidence hit him.

_Ok, just don't be awkward, please._

"What are you reading?" His voice came out in a whisper and he played with the sleeves of his red jacket. He already knew the answer.

"Rock Sound" he showed him the cover of the magazine where a crazy photo of Sleeping With Sirens was. Tyler found himself smiling at the sight of Kellin Quinn sticking his tongue out. "Do you like Sleeping With Sirens?"

"They're cool." Tyler shrugged "I'm not a fan, but I enjoy some of their songs."

_See? You're doing good. It's not that bad, is it? :)_

_Now don't fuck it up._

"Well you should be a fan" Josh laughed "They have a new album, Madness. It's pretty good, you should listen to it."

"I will." Tyler assured him and Josh grinned, putting the magazine on his bag and replacing it on the table with the Math books.

Half hour later, Tyler's thoughts drifted from the subject and to Josh's amazing colored sleeve tattoo. The way the bright colors fitted his arm perfectly and how flawless they were. His eyes danced up and down his arm, taking in the beautiful image. He had seen it before, but never been this close to it. He now could see lines he didn't knew were there.

Which reminded him.

"Josh?"

The called boy looked up from his notebook. "Yeah?"

Tyler played with his pencil, tapping it on his book. "How do you know about my tattoos?"

Josh's breath seemed to itch in his throat and Tyler looked at him, noticing a faint pink growing on his cheeks. Tyler frowned, nervously. Had he made him mad?

"Oh I..." Josh put his pen carefully on the table and wiped both hands on his tight black skinny jeans "I accidentally saw you shirtless at the locker room when I was late for my soccer practice."

Shit, fuck, he had? First a picture, now him shirtless? He wasn't sure if it was good or bad, but the thought of being shirtless in front of Josh excited him at the same time that made him nervous.

Oh my God, he imagined Josh taking off his shirt and placing soft wet kisses along his chest, licking and nibbling at places he didn't even know existed.

_Oh my God._

_Somebody call 911, the room is too hot, I can't fucking breath!_

"Oh" Tyler said, because what else could be say?

_"Oh why didn't you jump on me to make out when you saw me? It would be so sick!"_

"I'm sorry"

"No! No, it's ok, it's fine, totally fine." _That seemed to rushed... Smooth, Tyler, smooth..._ "I don't mind." He awkwardly laughed.

_Of course you don't._

"But your tattoos really are beautiful." Josh smiled, making Tyler feel hotter than the sun itself.

_Is the ambulance here yeat?_

"Thanks" he whispered, looking down and tugging at his red sleeves.

Life was good.

Until he fell off his chair, butt on the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *blushes*


	5. Not-so-frozen Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I'll know what I'm doing with my life at the moment.
> 
> That day is not today.
> 
>  
> 
> I also wrote this chapter while eating pizza.

"AAAAAHHHH"

Tyler covered his ears.

"Oh my gosh, Tyler, this is huge!" Jenna hugged him, squeezing the life out his cells, making him drop the frozen pizza he had been holding. "Huge!" She grabbed his face between her hands and soundly kissed his nose, patting his cheek like he was a good boy and then letting go.

Tyler was confused.

A lot.

The only thing he had done was ask Jenna if she had extra coins.

Which led led to her asking why and him answering he wanted to buy pizza for dinner but was completely broke.

Which led to her going with him to the grocery store where Tyler suddenly muttered (in a tone he was certain it had been humanly impossible to hear but was apparently wrong because the fricking girl had heard him loud and clear) that Josh thought his tattoos were beautiful, in the middle of the frozen food department.

Because honestly, what better place to help him remember it, than a dead fish and frozen pizza smelly grocery department?

Tyler couldn't think of a better place.

And there she was. Jenna Black, the poor small, (not) pure and (definitely not that) innocent girl, jumping with excitement like a child in Christmas day, screaming like an old woman at a Billy Idol concert.

Tyler Robert simply didn't understand the importance of his recent news. All he could think about was the fact that Joshua had seen him shirtless once and he hadn't rubbed his hands through his chest. It was making him crazy! He wasn't emotionally prepared for such life changing news!

And bad thoughts were creeping up inside him: What if he thinks I'm fat? What if I was sweating like a pig and he thought it was the grossest thing ever? What if?

Tyler was going mad!

And of course

 

JOSHUA MOTHERFUCKER DUN THINKS HIS TATTOOS ARE MOTHERFUCKING BEAUTIFUL

 

 

THE MOTHERFUCKER

 

But still. The one who should be dancing in the middle of the frozen food department hall like a barely alive wasted freak was him, not her. And considering her usual attitudes upon the subject of him dragging on and on about how shinny Josh's hair was that day or how cute his smile was or how freaking muscular his arms were or how well he played the drums, her state of pure happiness was a bit odd.

"I don't see the _hugeness_ of this, Jenna." Tyler pointed out, pushing her gently out if the away so he could pick up the dropped frozen pizza.

"Tyler, honey" she took the pizza from his hands "I love you, but you can be so annoyingly stupid sometimes."

Ok wow, Jenna, that actually hurt.

"You're so focused on yourself that you're completely clueless to the fact that Josh thinks that you're tattoos are beautiful."

"I'm not clueless, I just told you that." he dumbly said.

Jenna hit him on the shoulder with the pizza. Tyler winced, rubbing the hurt spot.

"No, you..." she stopped, trying to find a word "...asshat!" Tyler raised his eyebrows at the insult "The point is that Josh was literally flirting with you and you didn't freaking catch it!"

Tyler's body stiffened like a rock and his mouth opened and closed like a fish.

No.

Josh wasn't...

OH MY FUCKING GOD! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! HOW COULD YOU NOT NOTICE A HUGE THINK LIKE THIS, JOSEPH?

And then Tyler was hyperventilating. Sweating like the pig he was so scared of Josh thinking he was. His body was so numb and light that he couldn't feel his feet or the ground beneath him. He was loosing balance and feeling like he was floating on the thin fresh hair of the frozen food. Jenna quickly grabbed him, preventing him from falling as she told him to breath with her.

1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3

In-out, in-out, in-out

Slowly, Tyler's heart rate was going back to normal and his breaths calming down. He squeezed his eyes and let Jenna hug him, listening to her whispers of comfort.

"Better?" she asked softly, in a rare small and caring voice. Tyler pulled away from the hug to look at her worried face. He nodded and she went on her tiptoes to kiss his sweating forehead lightly. She then giggled, resting and shaking her head against his chest. "You're so in love."

Tyler scoffed and pulled away, grabbing the cold and now not so frozen pizza back from her hand and playfully pretending to be mad.

He wouldn't admit it.

But he was _so_ in love with Joshua William Dun.

 

* * *

 

 

They paid for the pizza and Jenna's mom called, telling her to go home, so Tyler headed to his alone with a plastic bag of almost unfrozen pizza.

Instead of going through his usual path, he decided to take a little turn and walk by the park. He needed to think an clear his mind. He remembered having to join his 'Friends for Hands' cleaning group that weekend. Not surprisingly, he didn't feel like going, but decided that he would make the effort since he would get to see Josh's wonderful sweaty bare back skinning under the hot sun.

He licked his lips just thinking about it:

Josh's back clenching with a burning intensity as he harshly panted above Tyler's limp skinny body, both of them feeling their veins vibrating with the love their moans, growls and screams carried.

Josh's back strongly keeping himself steady as he hugged Tyler in his arms, whispering soft I love you's in his ear and nibbling the flesh of it.

Josh's back leaning against a cinema chair, as they focused their attention on the movie in front of them, hands intertwined and fingers casually brushing inside the popcorn box.

Yes, he would make the effort and go clean more dog poop. It was worthy.

"Watch out!" Tyler heard someone yell and he looked up to find the source of the voice. But suddenly he felt his leg being almost ripped from his body and sent to the other side of the park as it quickly slid away from his other leg. He was soon meeting the hard ground with a big and painful thud, catching a glimpse of a skateboard rolling away from him in front of his eyes.

He winced as he rolled over, head pounding and spinning and the shinning sun painfully blinding his eyes. The sun then darkened to shades of red and looked worried down at him. Tyler rubbed his eyes, groaning, since when was the sun so beautiful?

"Tyler? Shit, are you ok?"

Wait... he knew that voice. He blinked multiple times, trying to adjust his eyes to the light of the world. Little by little, his vision became less and less blurry and a Joshua Dun came into view.

So _that_ 's why the sun looked so abnormally beautiful.

"I am so sorry."

Tyler's head was still insanely spinning. He rubbed his eyes with his hands. " _Joshy_?"

_Joshy?_

_Are you fucking kidding me?!_

He heard Josh chuckle and felt a gentle but strong hand going to the back of his head and carefully holding it up. "Yeah, it's me." Tyler took his hands out of his eyes to watch Josh as he locked his fingers with Tyler's hair on the back of his neck and pressed firmly. Tyler's eyes rolled to the back of his head or possibly down to his feet. It felt like heaven. "Can you get up?" Tyler slowly raised his back with the help of Josh and then he was back on his feet, with Josh's arms around him, so he wouldn't fall. _Freaking heaven._

"I'm sorry" Josh apologized a second time, biting his lip and watching Tyler's expression.

"It's ok" the younger managed to reply, voice shaking, still assimilating what was happening.

_But seriously, Joseph. Joshy? Fucking Joshy? Are trying to get yourself killed?_

"Are you ok?" Josh asked one more time, obviously concerned.

Tyler was literally melting like butter on Josh's arms.

Not able to speak, Tyler simply nodded, lips parted and looking deeply into Josh's brown eyes.

"Here, let me take you home."

Tyler's heart. Tyler's fucking heart was going up to his mouth, ready to be vomited on Joshua.

Tyler found himself agreeing with Josh with his head and Josh grinned, squeezed his shoulder and turned around to his friends at the skate park who were looking at them and waiting for Josh to come back.

"Hey guys, I'm gonna take my friend home. I'll meet you at Pete's later. I'll bring pizza!" he shouted.

"You better not bring one with olives like last time, Dun, or I'll fucking kill you!" a tall (pretty attractive but not Joshua Dun attractive) guy wearing glasses yelled "I got an extremely nonromantic date with the bathroom that day!"

Tyler opened his mouth, but closed it instantly as he felt Josh shake with disgust. "Brendon, dude, no one needs to know that!"

"You do! So you don't make the same mistake twice!" Brendon held his skateboard up and pointed it to Josh, glaring.

"Yeah yeah ok, whatever" Josh took an arm from around Tyler and waved it like a 'forget it' gesture. "I'm gonna go now, see you later!"

And with that, he picked up his skateboard that had been the cause of Tyler's fall and rolled it to his friends. He mumbled a 'come on' and gently pushed Tyler on the back to make him walk. Tyler slowly carried his body along with Josh. Josh wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him tightly against his chest. Tyler could feel every bone of Josh's ribs and every little muscle mountains of his chest.

"So do you mind walking? I have my car parked not too far away, we can drive if you prefer." Josh told him, about to take his arm from around Tyler but the younger quickly grabbed his hand to prevent him from doing it and held onto Josh's hand keeping his arm still and steady, wrapped around him.

"No, I like walking! Let's walk! Unless you don't like walking, then let's drive. We can drive if you want. But I don't mind. Walking that is. You can do whatever you want." He spoke fast and his grip on his crush's hands tightened. Surprisingly, Josh gently squeezed back, laughing. Startled, Tyler pulled away and stared at his hand, wide eyed, feeling his hand tingle. A small smile crept into his face. His head wasn't hurting anymore.

"Let's walk then."

"Ok" Tyler whispered.

They distanced themselves from the skate park until they couldn't see it anymore and Tyler was doing his best to not freak out, trying to keep his breaths in a normal pace.

Josh fucking Dun had his arms around Tyler fucking Joseph.

"So where do you live?"

"Oh hmm, I'll take you, don't worry."

Josh nodded and put his free hand inside his (guess what) black skinny jeans (didn't he had other types of jeans?).

"So have you been studying?"

Josh was giving small talk.

_God Josh do you want me to jump on you right here, right now? You're making things really difficult for me, man. I might just swallow your cuteness with my lips in a second..._

"Yeah, I have to" Tyler answered "As you probably already know, my grades aren't exactly the best..."

"Yeah, man, but you know you'll be ok. You have _Joshy_ now."

_Oh no. No no no._

He didn't.

Tyler moaned and hid his face with his hands to hide his red face, shaking his head at himself, completely embarrassed.

His life was over, now. Goodbye world.

"Oh my God, please don't."

Josh laughed and lightly bumped Tyler's shoulder with his fist. "Oh what's wrong? You can tell Joshy."

"No! Josh! Stop!" Tyler squeezed his eyes shut, still hiding behind his hands. His face felt hotter and hotter each second. "I can't believe I called you that."

"Oh believe it, _Ty_ , you did."

Tyler groaned again. This can't be happening. Why is he constantly embarrassing himself in front of Josh? Can't he take a break? Gosh...

Wait, what?

Tyler spread his fingers, creating a gap in which he could look through at Josh without having to reveal his flushness. " _Ty_?"

Josh shrugged, smiling. "Since we're into nicknames now, why not?"

Tyler closed the gap between his fingers quickly and breathed in and out, taking everything in, before slowly taking them off his face.

"Ty" he tried, loving the way it rolled out his lips so easily and caring "I like it."

"Me too." the drummer replied "I like Joshy."

_Me too. And you have no idea how much..._

They continued walking in silence and not one time did Josh take his arm from Tyler's shoulders. Tyler was so wrapped in his own mind that he hadn't noticed that they had arrived his house.

"We're here" he tugged on Josh's black Sum 41 t-shirt and Josh unwrapped his arm off him, letting the cold hit Tyler's back making him shiver.

"Alright, Ty" Josh handed him a plastic bag which Tyler recognized as the one with the pizza in. "I'll see you tomorrow at school."

Tyler remembered that they weren't going to have tutoring the next day. But the good thing was that it was Friday, so he would be sneaking into the music room to see Josh play drums.

Josh flashed him his million dollar cute smile and waved, walking away.

"Wait!" Tyler grabbed his arm, stopping him.

_What are you doing, Tyler?_

"Don't you wanna come inside for a while? We could eat pizza!" he frankly stuffed around the plastic bag, taking out the (definitely not anymore) frozen pizza and holding it up above his head. "My parents aren't home."

_Great. Now he's gonna think you're a creep and you want to have sex with him._

_Which is not a complete lie..._

_But still._

"I mean, I'm just telling you they aren't home because I thought you would maybe want to stay more comfortable alone with me. I mean, not comfortable or alone in that way, I mean, I just-"

_Great fucking job, Ty._

"Relax,Tyler" Josh interrupted him "It's ok, I get it. But I can't, I'm sorry. I promised the guys I would meet them as soon as I dropped you off."

"Oh"

Tyler lowered the pizza, arms falling limp on his sides.

"I'm sorry, I just really need to go. I still have to pick up a pizza to take and it's kinda getting late." He smiled apologetically and stuffed both of his hands inside his pockets.

"You can take this one!" Tyler yelled, shoving the pizza on Josh's face. Josh backed up from it lightly muttering a 'wow'. He stared at it for a moment before awkwardly chuckling and slowly pushing the wet unfrozen pizza away from his face.

"No, it's ok" he chuckled again, looking a bit uncomfortable.

_Why?! What have I done to the world to deserve this?!_

"I'm sure you're gonna need... _that_... for your dinner." Josh blinked at the pizza in Tyler's hand. Tyler gulped. "But thank you."

Tyler nodded and stuttered "You welcome."

"Well, I need to go now. Bye, Ty." Josh smiled warmly.

Tyler waved goodbye and watched Josh leave until he completely disappeared of sight. Shaking, Tyler turned on his heels to the front door and opened it in a record time, shutting it loudly. He leaned against the door and banged his head on it.

_What a loser, Joseph._

He thought before walking into the kitchen to throw the _not-so-frozen_ pizza away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *awkwardly gives you a good frozen pizza for you and your friends*


	6. Fucking Ok

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was reading through the comments and was literally grinning so wide that my dad thought I had gotten a new boyfriend/girlfriend and started to give me a whole lecture about how I have to focus on school and leave the romance behind. Because, even though I'm supposed to be already on vacations, I'm applying to a really prestigious music school and I have to do these exams to see if I'm admited or not... (kind of freaking out).
> 
> So I blame you guys and your amazing comments and kudos for those lost 10 minutes of life that I will never get back. Thank you.
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter is short, weird, doesn't make any sense and I'm sorry.
> 
> I promise the next one will be better. Please don't give up on me or on this fan(non)fiction just because of one chapter...

It was usual Josh arrive 10 minutes later than Tyler to the music room. However, it was unusual for Tyler to arrive 1 hour earlier than Josh.

It's not that it was exactly planned. It was Friday and he was supposed to be having Geography class. And he had been indeed having Geography, until the teacher's baby decided to come out in the middle of the class. Well, not literally... her waters broke. Not exactly the most pleasant thing to watch. He remembers her swearing words not even Mark would be capable of saying. And let's face it, Mark manages to put a swear word in almost every sentence he speaks.

So to conclude, Tyler left his class 1 hour earlier and decided to just head to the music room and play the piano (and sing, but he wouldn't ever admit it) for a bit.

His plan was to play for 40 minutes and then leave and lock the door like he was never there, hide in his usual place behind the plants and watch Josh play through the hole on the wall (hidden behind the said plants).

Tyler was grateful for the kid who had kicked that wall so hard it actually broke, because that hole gave him the best view of Josh playing, perfectly directed to the drums. God bless that kid, really. Tyler hadn't even bothered with the question of how the fuck the guy had managed to make a hole that big on the wall.

So he played the piano for what felt like ages, feeling his soul leaving his body and mixing with the sound, letting his voice crash against the thin air as he screamed and sang the words he had written.

But when, half way through his (probably) tenth song, he heard the door open, he almost fell off the bench.

"Oh fuck, oh shit, I'm sorry, I didn't know there was someone in here." the person quickly apologized.

Tyler's breath stopped, realizing whom the voice belonged to. He glanced at the clock above the door and cursed under his breath. He had been playing for 50 minutes.

 _Goddamit_.

"I'm sorry" Josh repeated "I have this room reserved for this hour and I didn't realize someone was in here. And- Tyler?"

Josh interrupted himself, seeing Tyler's head pop out from behind the piano. Tyler awkwardly laughed and waved at him.

"Tyler? What are you doing here? How come I didn't hear you playing?" Josh placed his things on the teacher's desk and walked closer to where Tyler sat in front of the piano. "Wait, you play?"

Tyler bit his lip, blushing at the smile growing on Josh's face. He breathed in.

"Yeah"

Josh's smiled widened and he quickly walked up to Tyler, until his tummy was right in front of Tyler's face. Tyler gulped and looked down at the piano keys.

"Dude, that's sick!"

Hearing that, Tyler instantly looked up at Josh and smiled, blushing even harder. His heart was beating thousands kilometers per second and his hands shook like an old person. He felt his insides burst with happiness.

"I play drums."

_Doesn't this guy realize how popular he is? Literally everyone knows he plays drums._

"I know."

"That's why I'm here, to practice."

"I know."

"I also come on Tuesdays and Thursdays."

"I know."

Josh raised his eyebrows at Tyler's small looking down figure. "How do you know?"

Shit.

"Oh hmm" Tyler's fingers danced timidly through the piano keys, pressing them lightly but not enough to create anything but barely audible sounds. "Your name is on this classroom schedule."

"Oh I didn't realize." Tyler nodded, more to himself than to Josh. He continued moving his fingers across the piano, but this time focusing only on the black keys.

"Do you come here often?"

_God Josh, will you just shut up, please? I'm kinda trying to avoid talking to you, if you haven't noticed._

_And yes, I come here often to watch you play drums._

Tyler shrugged. "No, not really."

Josh nodded, looking around.

And fuck.

This was going nowhere.

Tyler just wanted to disappear. Yes he was awkward himself, but this situation was just too much to handle. Even Josh was being kind of awkward. And Josh was never kind of awkward around him. God.

Until...

"Play something for me!" Josh clasped his hands excitedly and looked hopefully at Tyler with his beautiful big chocolate brown eyes.

"Uh I don't... I mean... I can't... I don't..." Tyler stuttered, gripping the bench under him, his knuckles going white.

He couldn't do it. He barely could play in front of his mother and neither Mark nor Jenna were people he was totally confortable with playing, even though they had already listened to him. But no matter what everyone said, Tyler wasn't good enough. And he certainly was not good enough to play in front of the best drummer he had ever known or heard of.

Josh was like a music God.

The guy was even applying to a scholarship to some fancy music university.

Tyler couldn't even get a B- at his piano classes.

But the general idea of sitting in front of the piano and pour his hear out on a song with someone (Josh) watching, listening, was absolutely terrifying.

And don't get him wrong, Josh was a wonderful person and Tyler knew he could trust him but he wasn't (couldn't be) sure how Josh would react. Would he like it, would he hate it or despise it? Would he make fun of him?

But most important - _would he understand?_

"Oh come on, Ty, please." Josh smirked.

 _And unfortunately he wasn't 100% sure on that_.

Tyler frankly shook his head, collecting his belongings and quickly getting up.

He was done with this.

His lips trembled and he fought the urge of explosion inside his chest.

He was done with Josh, he was done with himself always being a goddamn loser in front of Josh, he was done with dealing with his friends' mocking... He was done with everything. Including himself and his stupid life. He was so fucked up, God, he couldn't even play a simple song to a living being!

He was ready to storm out of the room, when a strong hand grabbed his arm. He turned to look at Josh, worried look on his face.

"Hey, it's ok" his grip on his arm lightened but was still firm and steady, giving Tyler some kind of sense of safety. He slowly brought Tyler closer to him and spoke in the most soft and caring tone Tyler had ever heard in his life. "If you don't wanna play, that's fine, Ty. But there's no need to cry."

Josh's eyes craved into Tyler's and Tyler felt uneasy and exposed. He quickly looked away like a bright light had blinded him. Something in his stomach twisted and he felt sick.

He hadn't even noticed he was crying until Josh spoke. He stupidly felt the tears building up on his eyes, his vision becoming blurry.

_Fuck, Tyler, you're such a baby. Why the fuck are you crying, Jesus?!_

"Hey Tyler, look at me." Josh put a finger under Tyler's chin and tilted his head up, forcing him to look at him. He softly caressed Tyler's skin. "What's wrong? I don't understand."

Tyler closed his wet eyes, breathing in and out.

 _Me neither_.

He felt so stupid. He didn't even have a plausible reason to cry. He was just crying. For nothing. Why?!

And then Josh's arms were suddenly around his limp body and his face was buried in Tyler's neck while Tyler's wad pressed against the strong muscles of Josh's chest. He breath in the scent of him, trying to memorize it. Josh was drawing small circles on his back and whispering non sense words of comfort on his ear. Tyler sighed.

"Are you ok?" Josh asked quietly. Tyler nodded against his chest and Josh pulled away carefully, like he was made of thin glass.

"Do you want to talk about what just happened?"

Tyler shook his head, avoiding Josh's eyes again. Josh sighed.

"Fuck it. You know what? Forget about the practice, I don't care." Josh grabbed his things and forced Tyler out of the door. "Let's grab Taco Bell."

And that's how Tyler Joseph ended up inside Joshua Dun's black BMW.

 _He would rather be inside of another Joshua Dun's thing... But this is cool too_.

They drove in silent and Tyler leaned his head on the window, eyes closed, letting the fresh air of the air conditioner absorb his sweat and heat. He would be more than glad if it actually froze him completely.

His mind was still playing with him.

Josh pulled over and unbuckled Tyler's seatbelt, patting his shoulder to tell him they had arrived. Tyler got out of the car and walked closely behind Josh, like he was some kind of protector.

Josh, seeing Tyler's unstable mood, ordered for both of them and they sat outside, wind blowing on their faces.

"Thank you." Tyler muttered, taking his food.

Josh eyed him him carefully before sighing. Tyler was playing with a potato chip, balancing it on his fingers. Josh shook his head and put down his uneaten food.

"Look, Ty, I don't know why you're like this, but whatever it is, you need to relax, ok? It's just me, Joshy, there's no need to freak out."

_And again, doesn't he realize how fucking important he is?!_

Tyler took a deep breath.

"Ok" he muttered.

"What? I didn't hear you."

"Ok" he repeated, just a little bit louder.

"Still can't hear you, Ty."

Tyler sighed. He could feel Josh hungry stare and his something inside his body squeezed tightly and painfully, like a punishment. Tyler put down the potato chip he was playing with and surprised himself when he giggled and rolled his eyes, letting out a loud and clear:

"I said fucking ok, Josh, Jesus."


	7. Perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I really need to repeat myself? :)
> 
> Stay alive |-/

The air felt too hot to breath in. The moon light broke through the open window, illuminating the darkness, and a light breeze was heading down the room. Only sounds of heavy breaths and the bed clinching under two glowing bodies were heard.

"Josh"

Tyler gasped as he felt Josh suck the skin of where his jaw line met his neck, harsh, not letting go until a red swollen mark was formed. Satisfied, he licked it softly and blew there, making Tyler shiver and let out a quiet moan. Tyler's hands gripped Josh's bare back and his nails scratched his skin. Josh lowered his body, pressuring on Tyler's desperate dick and both of them gasped at the same time and Tyler craved his nails even deeper on Josh.

Josh's hand went down slowly and teasingly to where their bodies met and he played with the waistband of Tyler's shorts. "Fuck, Josh, please!" Josh smirked and kissed his mouth hungrily but when Tyler licked his lower lip for him to let his tongue enter, Josh quickly pulled away, leaving Tyler breathless and flushed. And then Josh's hand was going inside Tyler's shorts and boxers and-

 

**I'M SO FANCY! YOU ALREADY KNOW!**

 

"No!" Tyler whined, pressing his face on his pillow and pulling his covers up above his head, trying to block out the sound.

_Just take me back! Take me back, please!_

 

**I'M IN THE FAST LANE FROM LA TO TOKYO**

 

He groaned and blindly reached for his phone on the nightstand, accidently knocking over whatever was there as well. Among the things falling, a crack sound was heard when something hit the floor. Tyler winced. That didn't sound good.

 

**I'M SO -**

 

"Hello?" Tyler spoke in a cracked and tired voice as soon as he found his phone, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.

"Dude! What the fuck are you doing? Jenna and I have been ringing the shit out of your doorbell!" Mark's voice came out of the phone speaker and Tyler opened his eyes slowly, confused, trying to voice out a 'What?' but not succeeding. "Are you deaf from that scream you made when you saw Josh the other day?!"

Tyler sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Go away." He breathed.

He could almost see Mark's angry red face and he suddenly heard loud bangs on the door.

A brief thought of where the fuck his parents were occurred to him.

"Tyler Robert Joseph, if you don't get out of that freaking bed and come open the fucking door now, I'll open it and take you out of there _myself_ and we both know how _well_ it went _last time_."

The sleepy boy cringed when the memories of that said _last time_ floated to his mind. Mark hung up and Tyler forced himself out of bed with a deep breath and carried his body towards the door, not caring about being only in his boxers.

He had barely opened the door completely when Mark burst inside like he owned the place. Tyler just let him and opened the door wider to let Jenna in as well.

She smiled at him and he smiled back. Or at least tried... because instead of a happy twist of lips, a look of something like pain was plastered upon his face.

"Fucking God, Joseph, look at you. You look fucking terrible!" Mark exclaimed.

"Thank you." Tyler replied, closing the door.

"It's 1 pm, dude." Mark stated, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows.

Tyler yawned, scratching his head with a hand, making his hair even messier, and waving in the air with the other like 'yeah-whatever-I-don't-give-a-fuck'. He walked past his friends and upstairs to his room, like they were already part of the house and not guests who needed some kind of guest courtesy. Nevertheless, both of them followed him.

"Damn Tyler, you haven't been at our place for a week and this is what happens. You so need me, bro." Mark said when they entered Tyler's room.

It sure needed some cleaning.

Tyler had been living in his parents house for the past week and not in his shared apartment with Mark because Mark had said and is now quoted 'I can't stand hearing you scream over Dun. You have to go fuck yourself to your parents house, bro. I'm sorry, you'll be missed.'

So therefore, Tyler did as told and is now having wet dreams about Josh Dun on the room right next to his parents.

Tyler threw himself on the bed and mumbled, face in the pillow "Of course I do."

He heard the door being closed.

"Alright big boy, do you know what today is?" He heard Jenna ask. Without waiting for an answer, she continued. "Sunday. And you know what that means? Trash and dog poop. And what does that mean? Josh Dun. So get yourself together because Mark and I are taking you to the park."

Tyler groaned.

It sounded like he was a dog.

"I can't, I'm sick."

Jenna whined. "Come on Tyler! Didn't you told Josh that you would stop being paranoid around him?"

"Yes!" Tyler lifted his head of the pillow to look at her "But that doesn't mean I'm actually gonna do that." He dropped his head again.

Jenna rolled his and turned to Mark who had already sat down in front of Tyler's keyboard and was just playing random notes and trying the different sounds it had. "Mark help me out here, please."

"Jenna's right." He said, not stopping.

Jenna rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Thanks Mark, that was really helpful."

"You welcome." He replied, now playing the notes in a violin mode.

Tyler sighed and sat up on the bed, hugging his pillow. "Look, guys, I give up, ok? There's no way in hell that I'm ever going to be normal around Josh-"

"Please, Tyler, it's not _just_ Josh, _nothing_  about you screams normal." Mark interrupted him, talking through a microphone and changing his voice to a robotic one.

Tyler didn't bother to acknowledge him. "And there's no way in hell a guy like Josh -

_(A guy with the sexiest body that has ever walked on earth and the cutest smile ever being shown to the universe like Josh.)_

\- is going to like a loser like me -

_(A freaking loser that takes away his sorrows by eating Taco Bell for a month and gets himself on a freaking volunteer group to clean up a park full of trash and dog poop like me.)_

\- So you can forget the stupid talent show because I'll just back off and live alone in my parents house in shame."

Jenna desperately threw herself on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, legs and arms open. "Gosh, you're such a drama queen."

Tyler got up and walked up to Mark, now messing with the ukulele. "I'm not." He said to Jenna, taking the ukulele away from his arms like Mark was a little kid. Mark pouted and crossed his arms, going to a corner and sliding down the wall until he was sat down and hugging his knees, glaring at Tyler. "I'm just stating the truth."

"Well the truth is bullshit."

"The truth is true."

Then Jenna was getting up and slapping Tyler across the face. He gasped in pain and rubbed his red hurt cheek, looking down at her in horror. The skinny bitch had more muscles than she looked like...

"The truth is that you're so in love with the guy that you can't see past through it! You have to forget that stupid crush that's slowing you down and remember that he's just a human being. That way you're going to act _kind of_ normal."

Tyler slapped her back and she also brought a hand up to her swollen cheek. The bean was actually stronger than he looked like... "I am not in love with him!" He threw the hand that was not on his cheek to the air, desperate.

_Oh shut up, you know you are._

"Didn't you just hear what I said?" she yelled, hand on her cheek too "The only thing you caught was that you're in love? Which by the way, you totally are."

"Whatever, Jenna." He sat on his desk, massaging his own cheek.

"You two look like a married couple." Mark pointed, getting up from the floor.

"Shut up." Tyler and Jenna ordered at the same time, glaring. Mark simply smirked and raised his eyebrows at them, tugging his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

 

* * *

 

Tyler was starting to think his friends had some kind of super-power that persuaded him to do everything they wanted and told him to.

And that was freaking the fuck out of him.

Because he was in the park.

He was wearing a high visibility vest and rain boots.

And trash was being picked by him with one of those pointy things that grabbed gross stuff. And no, Tyler did not know the name of it. Pardon him.

"So hmm" he laughed sarcastically, opening that... _thing_... and grabbing a weird covered in dry blood cotton paper (unfortunately he might have an idea of what _it_ is) "just out of curiosity, how is having you guys sitting there, looking all fresh and clean, supposed to help me act normal around Josh?"

Jenna sucked on the pink straw loudly, finishing drinking her fresh Coca-Cola and handed the can to Mark who crumpled it in his hands and gave it back to her, just for her to throw it to the ground next to Tyler.

Tyler sighed and picked the can to put it on the big yellow plastic bag he carried on his left hand.

"It's for moral support." She answered, adjusting her sunglasses.

"You welcome" Mark added, licking his mint ice cream.

Tyler wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his gloved hand and looked around until his eyes landed on the garden side of the park, where Josh was, shirtless, may I had, showing a little girl how to plant the flower seeds.

The little girl was laughing at whatever Josh had said and she seemed eager to grab the pack of seeds out of his hand. Josh shook his head, playfully frowning and holding it above her head. She giggled and then he got on his knees and - oh

_Josh on his knees, looking up at Tyler with those wide puppy eyes, slowly unbuttoning his pants and sliding them down and..._

_Jesus Christ, Tyler, calm your tits, man! Josh is right next to a freaking child!_

_But oh, Tyler didn't mind if Josh made a child with-_

_For fuck's fucking sake, Tyler, guys don't get pregnant!_

Ok, so... Josh got on his knees and motioned for the little girl to do the same and he poured some seeds on her hand and pointed to a hole on the dirt in which she was supposed to plant the seeds.

_I'll tell you in which hole you can plant your seed, Josh..._

_Ok, what? Robert... man... wow... that was... too dirty..._

"Tyler, focus." Jenna threw him the napkin she had used to wipe her mouth, but Tyler caught him on time, putting it on the trash bag. "Why don't you go up there and say hi?"

Tyler looked at her like she was crazy. "Are you kidding me?!"

"Why not? Just go." Mark supported, shrugging and licked his almost totally eaten ice cream.

"I can't! Have you taken a look at me?" Tyler gestured to himself, hands going frankly up and down "I look like a pipe cleaner with eyes!"

Mark snorted loudly, laughing and throwing his head back. "Dude! That one was _sooo_ good! Why haven't I thought about that? It's genius!"

Jenna blinked at Mark.

"What? It's fucking genius." He widened his eyes at her and laughed again.

"I can't." Tyler repeated, picking up another crumpled can of soda.

Jenna shook her head, eyes following the can until it was inside the trash bag. "Yes you-"

"Hey Tyler!"

The _pipe cleaner_ froze, dropping the paper that was grabbed by the thing. He blinked, feeling drops of sweat coming down his forehead. And it was not because of the heat of the air.

"Tyler!"

They repeated. Tyler was going to faint. He could already feel his legs giving up, his throat closing and his heart speeding.

"What the hell are you doing, Tyler? Say hi!" Mark smacked his head. When did he got up from under the fresh tree shadow and into the hot sun with Tyler?

Seeing that Tyler wasn't going to move, Mark sighed and picked him up to turn him around to where Josh was calling from the garden (shirtless) and grabbed Tyler's arm, waving it at Josh for him. Josh looked at them weirdly but cracked out a laugh and waved back, amused, before turning around to the little girl again.

"Tyler?" Mark waved his hand in front of Tyler's face, but the guy was still frozen, staring off into space, or at Josh, he couldn't quite understand. "Tyler!"

Tyler blinked "Did I say hi?" he whispered, looking hopefully at his friend.

"No, Tyler, you did not say hi." Mark chuckled but smiled apologetically at him and he frowned, looking down.

"I'm a mess."

"Yes, you are." Mark grinned and patted him on the back.

"No, you're not." Jenna glared at Mark and put a hand firmly on Tyler's shoulder. "You just panicked, it's fine, it happens."

"It always happens, Jenna." He looked sadly at her. She returned the same expression.

"That's why I told you what I told you earlier." Tyler looked questioning at her, not knowing what she was talking about. Jenna's shoulders dropped and she looked dumbfounded at him. "I knew he didn't listen." She mumbled to herself, but then turned to her friend again. "You have to see past your crush and look at Josh like a normal person. When you talk to him, don't think about how hot he is or how much you like him, just be yourself."

"It's kinda hard to be yourself and not think about how hot he is when he's shirtless." he looked pointedly at her.

Jenna blinked and smiled weirdly, not having arguments to fight back because, well, she had to admit that Josh was pretty good looking.

"But yeah, fine, you're right."

She grinned and squealed and looked at Mark, smirking. "Of course I am."

Mark scoffed and went back to under the shadow, licking the rest of the ice cream.

"Go talk to him!" She smiled sweetly and warmly and Tyler smiled back at her, nodding and then taking a deep breath. He turned around, ready to go for it and talk to Josh, but collided with a hard warm and sweaty wall.

"Uff" he gulped, eyes going up to meet two familiar brown ones.

Josh chuckled and backed up a bit to look properly at Tyler. Tyler felt a rush of insecurity flying over him, remembering the way he was dressed and what he was holding and previously doing. However, from the corner of his eyes, he saw Mark and Jenna looking at him and he knew he couldn't let them down. Jenna gave him thumbs up. He couldn't let himself down.

"Hey" he greeted, happily but welcoming, not too excited, not too frightened, shy but _perfect_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's not exactly a cliffhanger (I think?) but the next chapter will have their conversation. So be prepared!  
> Ly


	8. So much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sososososooooo sorry I took so long. But here it is, hope you like it.
> 
> Stay street |-/

Josh grinned.

But it wasn't one of those typical wide Dun smiles that made his brown eyes crinkle in two almost thin lines that Tyler was used to and loved. It wasn't one of those Dun smiles that warmed up Tyler's insides and filled him with love for the latter (although this one did too, but there was something else) it wasn't one of those smiles that got Tyler anxious because it was so perfect that he thought he would never live up to that.

It was a happy smile, nothing different here, because Josh's smiles were always full of happiness and excitement. But it was a grin that made Tyler shiver from inside out, feel his ears burning and letting his lips part, looking at the way Josh's lips tucked upwards on his face. It still warmed him and he still fell in love just a bit more but... this grin... this grin seemed almost... proud.

"Hey" Josh greeted him, and Tyler could have sworn that a soft pink flashed on Josh's cheeks just as quickly as it disappeared.

Tyler grinned back, not believing that he was actually feeling his body relax and his mind focusing on himself and the beautiful boy in front of them. Nothing else mattered. Josh was a person. A person that Tyler liked very much.

"What's up?" Tyler asked, voice still shaky but a little more confident than usual.

Josh shrugged but smiled, scratching one of his biceps and Tyler almost drooled, seeing Josh's sweaty body shine under the hot sun light.

_Fuck. Tyler, no. Don't. You're doing good, come on._

"I just wanted to see how you're doing, hope that's ok with you." Josh chuckled.

Tyler gulped and heard the plastic bag on his left hand ruffle due to the shakiness of his hand. He couldn't help it... Josh's bare chest was just too much.

_Ok, Tyler, take deep breaths. You're doing well._

_Josh is just a person._

_... a person with a most likely illegal chest and gosh Joshua should be in fucking jail._

_But he still is a person_.

"Of course it is." he said, keeping his breaths steady and holding the pointy thing like his life depend on it. His hands were sweaty to the point that he thought that his cells could be easily having a pool party inside his gloves.

Tyler wondered what he could or should say next. He wasn't good with small talk or even starting conversations. His mind would always go completely blank, like it was preventing him from any kind of human socialization, keeping himself from getting embarrassed by saying something he would probably regret later. His insecurities would always make their way up his thoughts too, consuming him with the idea that he would fuck everything up like the worthless human he was.

He didn't like his mind one bit.

"You having fun there?" Josh smirked at him. Tyler, caught off guard, opened and closed his mouth. He switched the pointy thing from his right hand to the left and tugged his vest down, clearing his throat.

There was no reason to lie.

"Yeah, totally. Isn't that obvious?" Tyler sighed, looking down, hoping that Josh caught the sarcasm of his answer.

Apparently he did, because he chuckled, tilted his head and lifted his shoulders up, teasingly, like he was saying that Tyler had brought that on himself.

_And oh, he had no idea how..._

"Josh!" A little voice yelled from far, and Josh instantly turned away while Tyler stood on his tiptoes, curious to see who was calling his Josh.

The same kid that Josh had been with previously came running towards them, wearing a baseball cap bigger than her head and big smile on her face. Josh bended down and opened his arms wide to where the girl jumped and he picked her up instantly.

"Josh, Josh, Josh! Look at my new hat!" She said excitedly, the hat falling deep on her head, covering her eyes. Josh laughed, pushing it up.

"I don't think this hat belongs to you, Hayley."

She widened her eyes and opened her mouth, looking shocked and disappointed at him. "Yes, it does!"

"No, it doesn't" Josh argued, pushing the hat down to her eyes quickly before pulling it back up "It's mine."

The girl did her best to cross her arms, her little body securely in Josh's embrace. But her pout quickly turned into a grin and she clapped her hands, looking hopefully at Josh.

"Come on, Josh, let's go plant the flowers!"

Josh smiled, shaking his head, amused. He turned back to Tyler, who had been watching them, drooling over the fact that Josh was so nice with children.

_I wonder what would be like to have Josh's-_

_Oh. My. Fucking. God. Tyler. Unless you're talking about adoption, guys don't get fucking pregnant!_

_Josh would be such a good father though..._

"Well I gotta go" he told him, pulling Hayley up on his hip.

Tyler nodded. "Yeah, yeah, go. You have stuff to do, I..." he grabbed the pointy thing back to his right hand and looked around him "me too." He said awkwardly, sighing when he caught Mark dumping his empty ice cream cup to the ground.

Josh frowned.

"Hey, don't you wanna join me there?" Josh pointed behind him to the garden "I'm sure Patrick won't mind switching places with you."

Tyler widened his eyes at the offer. "Uh... I... Are you sure?"

Josh grinned, pushing his head slightly away when the girl tried to put the baseball cap on his head. "Of course. Come on."

Tyler wanted to go. He really _reallyreallyreally_ wanted to go. And at that moment, he didn't even care about that Patrick guy doing the dirty gross work for him. All he could think was _flowers with Josh, flowers with Josh, flowerswithJosh_.

He didn't hesitate when he threw the bag and pointy thing to ground and forced his high visibility vest out of his body (the thing barely passing through his head, with the amount of rush he carried) and the gloves out of his hands. He quickly stepped out of the garbage and ran to where Josh was standing, like he was running away from a tiger.

"Lets go!" He screamed, letting out a long breath, realizing he didn't have to see more of that gross stuff that weekend. Josh grinned at him, noticing Tyler's friends high fiving each other behind his back.

He led Tyler up the small hill and to the fresh green garden. Tyler breathed in the scent of the flowers and closed his eyes, enjoying it, instead of the bad smell he used to feel the previous weekends. Josh put the little girl down, and Tyler followed him to a tree shadow where two guys were bending down on the dirt, surrounded by pigeons, screaming with each other.

"Goddamit, Brendon, that's not how you do it!" A brunette guy yelled at other guy which Tyler recognized as the one from the skate park the other day. "You're supposed to put the seeds on the hole, not give them to the stupid birds!" The guy gasped as the brunette slapped his hand away, the seeds falling down to dirt and the pigeons flying away, scared.

"Fuck you, Dallon!" The guy cursed, dropping on his knees, hands searching blindly for the small brown seeds that were now mixed up with the dirt. "Look what you've done!" He grabbed two hands full of dirt and lifted them up "My seeds!" he let the dirt escape between his fingers and fall to the ground while he dramatically looked up to the sky, making crying sobs. "My birds!" He screamed, sticking his hands up, like he was trying to catch them.

The brunette rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake, Brendon, grow up." He stood up and cleaned his hands, rubbing one on another. Then he looked up at Josh and Tyler, patiently waiting for their argument to finish. "'Sup Josh?" He sighed. Tyler raised his eyebrows at the guy on the ground, surrounded by pigeons again. He didn't question.

"Hey Dallon, where's Patrick?" Josh asked, looking around.

Tyler saw the brunette, Dallon, roll his eyes again and desperately rub his face with his hands, sighing deeply. "He's fucking with Pete behind that tree." he pointed to the tree next to the birds guy, who was happily throwing the flower seeds to the pigeons and squealing like a little kid everytime one of them caught them. "God, please help me, I'm surrounded by children." Dallon mumbled, looking at him.

Josh clicked his tongue and patted Dallon's shoulder. "You have to be strong, buddy." He told him, before going on the direction of the tree. Tyler followed him again, until he started hearing the tree moan. He stopped. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see that.

Josh walked around the tree and seconds later two guys came out with him, the tallest lowering his shirt and scratching his tattooed arm while the other fixed his glasses and hair, lips swollen. Tyler blinked.

"Josh, you motherfucker, I was about to get fucking laid!" the tallest, complained, glaring at Josh. The other hit him on the arm, telling him to shut up.

"Yeah, don't wanna know, don't fucking care."

Tyler's eyes widened when he heard the curse coming out of Josh's mouth. He had heard him curse a few times, but always in the spur of the moment, never really intentionally putting those words in the middle of a sentence. He wasn't used to hear him talking like that. But then again, he had never really been with Josh in his friends environment. Seems like Joshua wasn't so innocent after all.

 _You definitely wouldn't be innocent in a bed with me either, Josh, cursing your lungs out, deep inside me_.

"Hey Patrick?" Josh turned to the boy wearing glasses, smiling sweetly at him. The guy raised his eyebrows suspiciously.

"What the fuck do you want?"

Josh put a hand on his chest, faking hurt. "Oh you hurt my feelings, Trick!" he said sadly (Tyler's stomach filled with butterflies, looking at Josh's big eyes. The sadness seemed believable.) "What makes you think I want some-"

"Spill it, Dun."

Josh's expression automatically turned back to normal and he dropped his hand down, not hesitating a second before he spoke again. "Switch with my friend Tyler and go clean the park down there."

The tattooed guy snorted. "Down there... It sounds pornographic." He muttered. Tyler broke into a small amused smile, hearing him.

"What?" Patrick walked further away until he could see the natural dumpster of the park "No way, man!"

Josh sighed and pulled Tyler's arm, dragging Tyler with him to Patrick's side. "But look at him!" He grabbed Tyler's face, turning him to his friend. Tyler blinked, feeling Josh's strong fingers squeeze his cheeks. "You can't say no to a face like this, can you?" He shook Tyler's head in his hand and Tyler found himself widening his eyes to look like a puppy. Patrick breathed, looking at the innocent boy's face trapped between Josh's fingers. "Patrick" Josh pleaded, pulling his own face to Tyler's and pressing their cheeks together, doing puppy dog eyes too.

"You can't say no to that, babe!" The guy that had been with Patrick behind the tree yelled at him, from behind them.

"This is none of your business, Pete!"

"Babe..."

Patrick looked at the two pleading faces before him. Josh broke into a small smile and squeezed Tyler's face for him to do the same. Patrick sighed.

"You better fuck me good tonight, Pete." He yelled without turning around, eyes fixed on Tyler and Josh.

"Gotcha!" Pete laughed.

Patrick glared at Josh. "Get out of my face."

Josh broke into a full grin and squealed, letting go of Tyler's face and hugging Patrick tightly, kissing him on the cheek soundly. Patrick pushed him away and wiped his face, disgusted. Josh grabbed Tyler's hand and pushed him back to where his other friends were.

Tyler smiled to himself.

"Who's your boyfriend?" Pete asked, supporting his weight on Dallon's shoulder.

Tyler felt his cheeks getting warm and his stomach twisted, his hand, tangled with Josh's, shook and sweat started to form inside their embrace. Pete smirked, noticing the furious blush on his cheeks.

"His name is Tyler" Josh introduced him, pulling his hand back from Tyler's and putting it on his shoulder, squeezing it lightly "He's not my boyfriend."

_Yet._

 

_..._

_Tyler. No._

"Uh uh." Pete pronounced, amused.

Tyler bounced on his feet, slightly uncomfortable."Hi" he waved, deciding to intervene.

"Hey" Dallon walked up to him, sticking out his hand "I'm Dallon."

Tyler prepared himself to shake his hand, but got startled when Dallon closed it into a fist. Tyler laughed awkwardly as he did the same and Dallon bumped their knuckles together.

"That guy over there" he pointed to the one from the park laughing with the birds "is Brendon. He's not very normal."

Tyler nodded, blinking.

"I'm Pete." the tattooed told him, bumping their fists like Dallon "The hot boyfriend of that guy you just sent way."

Tyler chuckled awkwardly again, scratching the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry about that."

Pete laughed, shrugging. "Don't worry about it, man. It's cool."

"You guys wanna help me here?" Brendon asked and Tyler looked at him, seeing him full of pigeons on his chest.

Dallon closed his eyes and took a deep breath before going up to the guy and shaking the birds away. Brendon sighed, relieved and quickly got up, jumping on Dallon's arms. Dallon patted his back as Brendon buried his face on his neck, smiling happily and obviously enjoying the body contact.

Tyler watched as Brendon thanked him when he pulled away and Dallon waving away, looking bored. He giggled to himself and turned to Josh. "Are they dating?" he whispered quietly, carefully for them not to hear.

Josh chuckled. "Nah, Dallon is as straight as a fucking wall. But Brendon has a big fat gay crush on him."

Tyler nodded, turning back to them, and sighed.

_Kinda like you and I._

He couldn't help but think that Josh was most certainly straight and he would never get a chance with him.

He would never get to kiss him or hold his hand, he would never get to fuck him mindlessly to the point where the mattress would break and definitely would never get to fuck him on the janitors closet during classes hours. Tyler would never get to wear Josh's band t-shirts or one of his countless black hoodies, he would never get to trace his fingers or tongue over Josh's chest. But most importantly, Tyler would never get to tell him and show him how much he _loved_ Josh.

And he does. _So much_.


	9. Dreaming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello human beings!
> 
> To clarify something, each chapter is on a day of the week:
> 
> Chapter 1 & 2 - monday  
> 3 - tuesday  
> 4 - wednesday  
> 5 - thursday  
> 6 - friday  
> 7 & 8 - saturday
> 
> This chapter is on a monday, because I didn't feel like writting Sunday.
> 
> I will start to put the days of the week at the beggining because it might be helful for the countdown until the talent show that is next monday.
> 
> Stay alive, stay street, stay unlit |-/

Monday.

It was what was written on the lock screen of Tyler's phone.

A week after Jenna had forced him to have tutoring lessons with Josh and a week from the talent show.

Tyler hadn't stopped a second to think about the talent show. He was too busy trying (and failing) to pretend he was confident around Josh to even think about the thing that made him anxious and want to crawl in a corner and die. He hadn't thought about the thing that he couldn't do, even if his mother threatened to kill herself (which coming to a reason is a very bad and horrible example and God Tyler loves his mom too much).

Playing in front of people.

You could say he had stage fright. However, he didn't like to use that term, making him feel uneasy and a small ball of insecurity. Which in fact he truly was, but he didn't want or need to remind himself of it.

He didn't like people in general. He didn't like the way they judged everything and everyone. Being judged was one of his biggest fears. It was what made him wear his favorite floral robe at home only and not on public spaces, it was what stopped him from telling his mom how his mind worked, even though not even he new himself exactly how it did. It was what prevented him from talking to his long time crush (apart from the fact that Joshua was just too popular and perfect for him). And it was what made him feel incapable of getting in front of a piano and sing his songs to other people. Familiar and unfamiliar faces.

Tyler sighed. He knew he couldn't do that. Even if he wanted or agreed to, he wouldn't do it because there was no way in hell Josh would play with him. Tyler wouldn't, couldn't and didn't know how to ask something like that. It wasn't possible.

So he decided to unlock his phone and text Jenna at 7:30 in the morning.

His eyes felt heavy as he quickly typed his lock combination. Despite spending Sunday on his bed for the entire day, cursing his life for falling in love with a most likely straight boy, he was still tired as heck. And he was sure he would fall asleep in History class that day.

He clicked on Jenna's number, ready to tell her that he wasn't going to talk to Josh about the talent show and most certainly was not participating.

But the second he typed the first letter, his phone buzzed and he looked up at the notifications to see he had a message from an unknown number. He furrowed his eyebrows, confused, debating with himself if he should opened it or not. It could be some freak pedophile for all he knew. He decided to ignore it and cleaned the notification. But when typing the second letter, the phone buzzed again.

Tyler blinked.

_Joseph, don't._

Tyler slowly rolled the notification bar down.

 _Dude, stop_.

His finger raised upon the message icon.

 _This is the last time I'm warning you, man. Stop_.

He clicked on it.

 _If you die, I'll tell Zach you used his toothbrush to brush Ms. Watson's dog's teeth_.

 

**unknown number, 7:36**

**wakey wakey**

 

**unknown number, 7:37**

**sleep well?**

 

Tyler screamed and dropped his phone to the ground, running to the bathroom attached to his bedroom and locking the door, leaning his back and head against it, looking up at the ceiling while he breathed heavily.

It was a pedophile.

He was going to fucking die.

_Oh god oh god_

_I have to run away._

_I'll pack everything and leave for LA this morning. They can't find me. They won't find me, I-_

_Tyler._

_..._

_Breath._

_It's ok._

_Come on._

_Go check your phone, maybe they sent it to the wrong number._

_Yeah._

_Breath._

Tyler took a deep breath and opened the door. He stood still in the middle of his bedroom, staring at his phone. He took a deep breath and walked up to it, picking it up. He unlocked it. There were no new messages. He let out a breath of relief.

 

**Tyler, 7:42**

**im sry, you must have the wrong number**

 

Tyler sent it, closing his eyes. He put his phone down, deciding he would just talk with Jenna at school. He opened the closet to choose his clothes for the day and took out some black skinny jeans (not as tight as Josh's but still pretty tight) and a plain blue t-shirt. He threw the items on the bed, barely catching the sight of his phone lighting up. Tyler blinked again. He slowly picked his phone to read the message.

 

 

**unknown number, 7:49**

**oh crap sry**

 

Tyler was about to reply, saying it was ok, when the phone buzzed again. He sighed as he deleted what he was writing and opened the new message.

 

**unknown number, 7:49**

**but r u sure? this is not tyler?**

 

Tyler's heart started beating fast.

Fucking pedophile, I tell you.

 

**unknown number, 7:50**

**it's joshy...**

 

His heart dropped.

Not to the ground.

It went straight past it, making a hole on the floor, where he could plant the seeds of his dignity like Josh had taught him at the park, and went directly to the earth's nucleus.

He read the text over and over again. Ten, eleven, twelve times to make sure he was reading correctly. Was he asleep? He had to be. Why or how else would Josh be texting him if not on his dreams?

He was asleep and dreaming, still on his bed.

And on his dreams he could do whatever he wanted.

 _Sick_.

 

**Tyler, 7:52**

**josh? how did u get my number?**

 

He waited for a response, tapping happily on the phone's screen. Josh was taking too long. He frowned. Oh god he wasn't going to re-

 

**unknown number, 7:53**

**jenna**

 

Tyler rolled his eyes. Even on his dreams, Jenna messed with his love life and did whatever she wanted. The stupid little shit...

 

**Tyler, 7:53**

**of course...**

 

**unknown number, 7:54**

**she told me you had mine**

 

**Tyler, 7:55**

**well I didnt**

 

**unknown number, 7:57**

**well u do now, so ur free to text me whenever u want**

 

Tyler grinned. His dreams were always better than reality. Was Josh flirting with him?

 

**Tyler, 7:57**

**sick**

 

**unknown number, 7:58**

**sick as frick**

 

 _Sick?! Come, Tyler, it's your dream, you can do better than that, it won't damage, it's not real. Don't make things awkward on your head to_.

He quickly started to write something else but he got another message.

 

**unknown number, 7:59**

**i g2g, see u at school in ten, ty. dont be late :)**

 

Tyler threw his back on the bed and giggled happily, hugging his phone tightly against his chest. These were the only times when he actually liked his mind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tyler entered through the school doors with a wide smile on his face. He couldn't stop thinking about his dream. He would be jumping and yelling if he wasn't on a public space where everybody could quickly make fun of him. He walked to the hall where his locker was and saw Jenna at her locker too, back turned to the people walking around, knee pulled up with her floral bag on it, taking some books off the locker and putting them inside the bag. Her blonde hair fell flawlessly a bit above her shoulders and Tyler took a mental note to compliment her again for her choice of haircut. It fitted her perfectly. He rushed to her, hugging her from behind and resting his forehead on top of her head. Jenna squealed quietly, startled to feel his arms around her.

"Have I ever told you how good this haircut looks on you?"

"Tyler?" she asked confused, recognizing his voice. She turned around on his arms and looked up at him "Wha- thank you, I guess." She smiled softly but the confused look never left her features. "What's up with you today?"

Tyler sighed happily and let her go, throwing his head back and squeezing his eyes tightly, grinning. He looked at her again, seeing her with an amused expression as she was trying not to laugh.

"Today is such a good day, Jenna, isn't it?"

She laughed, closing her locker. "I guess. What happened?"

Tyler giggled and bit his lip, looking at her with shinny eyes. "I got the best dream ever today." he told her, bringing his hands to his heart and gripping his shirt.

"Apart from Josh fucking you?" A voice came from behind him and he turned around to see Mark "Really? Better than that?"

Tyler shrugged, smiling. He was in a too good mood to even care about his friend's poor teasing.

"I dreamed that Josh texted me good morning and we talked for a while and I wasn't awkward like I usually am."

Mark blinked. "That's it?"

Tyler frowned, sad that his friend wasn't happy for him. "What do you mean 'that's it'? What are the chances of Josh texting me if not in a dream?"

"What are the chances of Josh fucking you if not in a dream?!" Mark exclaimed, genuinely surprised at Tyler's clueless reply "Dude, it would be easier to get his number than get in his pants! Besides, Saturday, Jenna gave him your number, so the odds are even higher."

Tyler chuckled and shook his hand. Oh his friends were really ingenuous... poor Mark and Jenna.

"No" he placed a hand on Mark's shoulder and looked sympathetically at him, talking slowly for him to understand "Jenna did that in my dream." He squeezed his shoulder reassuring and slapped his cheek softly, chuckling again. He let go of Mark and leaned his back on the lockers. "Well, there's only one reasonable explanation to all this. I'm still dreaming."

He sighed and smiled, resting his head on the lockers too and closed his eyes.

Suddenly a sharp pain on his arm interrupted his amusement and he opened his eyes quickly, cursing at the sudden pain. He looked at Jenna, who had apparently pinched his arm.

She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it too, talking slowly and sweetly at him like he did to Mark. "Looks like you're awake."


	10. Almost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I. AM. SO. SORRY.
> 
> I WENT TO FRANCE FOR A WEEK AND THEN COMPLETELY FORGOT TO POST!  
> I'M SO SORRY!
> 
> You can kill me after you read this chapter...
> 
>  
> 
> This is still monday, by the way

He remembers when he first saw Josh.

He was walking home from school and saw this weird boy skating his way down the street, hands inside his jacket pockets, hoodie up on his head, a piece of blue hair peeking out, and headphones on his ears, blasting music so loud that Tyler recognized it as Metallica. He watched the boy stop in front of a big house, jumping on his skateboard and skillfully kicking it so it went up and he grabbed it.

Tyler stopped on his tracks, standing in the middle of the street, just watching, and he didn't even know why.

The boy fumbled around his pockets and pulled out a key. He was suddenly turning his head to Tyler's direction and Tyler almost choked on himself, seeing his face. His eyes looked like the ones of a puppy, his skin seemed rough but soft and Tyler wanted to touch him the second he saw him, he had a lip ring perfectly placed in the middle of his bottom lip and Tyler found himself thinking about how it would feel against his own lips.

Come to think about it now, it's amazing how Josh had changed in only two years: he had substituted his lip ring with a nose ring, and even tough Tyler misses it and still wonders what would be like to kiss him with the ring, the nose ring was even cuter; he had put on ear plugs and his hair had been green, purple and pink before the red he has been using for 2 months; he had also gotten a tattoo on his right arm and had recently added more to it, painting a beautiful combination of reds, yellows and oranges right under his bicep.

Josh getting a tattoo was actually one of the reasons Tyler decided to get one himself...

But he still remembers like it was yesterday: the way Josh's lips tucked upwards in a a small smile when he caught Tyler looking at him. He remembers the warmth of his cheeks and he remembers thinking " _shit_ ".

And it was a great and rational thought, considering how fucked up he has still been after all this time. Josh had managed to officially steal is heart when Mark showed him the school radio hosted by Josh, or Dj Spooky Jim as he called himself. He fell in love with his voice and words as he listened to everything he said and every song he played. He learned that Josh was a hilarious guy, always ready to throw a funny joke to light up the mood, and he was sweat too, and comprehensive. He would get multiple calls to his radio station from teenagers who pleaded advice. Josh would always give them and talked to them the best he could.

Tyler _didn't_ squealed when Mark told him that the voice on the radio belonged to the cute blue haired boy...

Tyler blames Joshua for messing up with his mind. He blames him for everything.

He blames Josh for persuading him to think that the whole texting thing was simply a dream and no matter what Tyler said or did, he wouldn't regret it because it never actually happened.

But it did.

And he blames Josh.

He swears that his love for him turned into hate when a red head appeared in the middle of the students walking down the hall. He hated the fact that Josh was walking towards him too, flashing one of his famous smiles that Tyler was honestly tired of because they were so perfect and Josh didn't even have to try.

He hated Josh when he greeted him happily.

Tyler also hated himself when he greeted back with equal happiness on his voice.

"I'm sorry if I scared you this morning." Josh apologized, hand curling on a trade of red hair above his forehead.

Tyler hated Josh.

So so _soooo_ much.

He just wished it was his own hand on Josh's hair, feeling those rough from dyeing curls locking around his fingers.

Tyler shook his head and waved. "Nah, you didn't, don't worry about it."

_Suuure he didn't..._

"I like texting you." he continued.

_What?_

"I-I mean, I've never texted you. Not until this morning, which in fact you were the one who texted me, not me. But I responded, which means that I technically tex-"

_Deep fucking breaths, Tyler._

"Sorry..." He sighed, looking down.

So much for being normal around Josh and look at him now...

Josh nodded "Cool." Instead of continuing curling his hair, Josh gripped it, an act that seemed almost nervous, but Tyler couldn't really tell. "Hey, do you mind if I walk you to class? I don't really feel like hearing Brendon early in the morning..."

So...

Did he hear correctly or was his mind playing tricks on him again?

Tyler bit his lip and smiled, nodding eagerly. He looked at Jenna and Mark, waiting for them to leave and the girl grabbed Mark's arm and pushed him away with her. Tyler closed his eyes, facing away from Josh. He could do this. He turned back to Josh, smiling and Josh smiled back, signaling with his head for Tyler to follow him.

"So what class are you having?"

Tyler smiled to himself and blushed.

He still remembers the first time he talked to Josh. Well, the first time Josh talked to him, actually.

"English" he answered sheepishly, biting off a smile.

He remembers Mr. Dehaan explaining them how the prepositional pronouns worked and he was taking notes on his book, listening carefully to every word the teacher was saying. He remembers the man cracking a poor joke about the subject that he can't recall but knows that it wasn't funny at all. And he remembers hearing a group of boys behind him laughing at it in a mocking tone and he turns around to see Josh and his pink hair laughing with his friends. Tyler glances at the teacher and he seems proud of himself, believing that his previous joke had been the cause of the laughter.

Tyler sighed, catching a last look at Josh and his beauty before sinking down in his sit. And he briefly remembers Mr. Dehaan going back to explaining the subject until he felt something hit the back of his head and then hearing quiet laughter and a few gasps. He turned around, hand protecting the place where he was hit and he wanted to glare at whoever had thrown what had felt like a pen at him. But he saw Josh, wide eyes looking at him, with a hand in front of his mouth and a flushed face from trying his best to keep himself from laughing. Next to Josh, his friends, that now Tyler knew were Brendon and Pete, were also red but not containing their laughter. Josh slowly took his hand out of his mouth and chuckled, looking apologetically at Tyler before bending down and picking up the pencil that had hit Tyler. "Sorry." He told him in a whisper.

And Tyler must had stared at the pink haired boy for too long, considering when he turned on his sit, Mr. Dehaan was standing tall, looking down at him with his arms crossed. The class laughed at the situation and Tyler turned completely red, sinking even more on his chair.

"Ok" Josh answers, possibly trying his best to sound interested. Tyler looked at him. He was looking around, trying to avoid Tyler's face while fiddling with the hem of his black Thirty Seconds to Mars shirt. He seemed nervous but Tyler couldn't help but notice a bored expression on Josh's face. At least he thought it was boredom.

Tyler bit his lip. Maybe he had done something wrong...

He shouldn't have texted Josh back the way he did. It was a mistake. Everything about this was a mistake. Loving Josh was a mistake.

Tyler sighed and looked down.

The bell rang and immediately students started running to their classes and bumping Tyler's shoulders on their way, pushing Tyler back, making him press his body to Josh's accidentally. He restrained himself from holding on to Josh to keep himself from falling with the amount of pushes he was getting. Until he felt a hand slip securely to his and he looked down to see Josh confidently grab his hand, keeping him steady and pushing him with him, making Tyler struggle less with the bumps of the other people.

Tyler lifted his eyes to Josh's face, expecting him to be looking back at him and smiling, but found him looking straight ahead, firm expression and eyes furrowed like he was thinking too hard about something. Josh looked completely unfazed by the fact that he was holding Tyler's hand. Josh dragged Tyler to his class, taking his hand back when they stopped by the door.

Tyler looked at him again and something wasn't right. Josh had suddenly changed his mood: he had been so jumpy and smiley, texting Tyler and then smiling happily at him the minute he saw him and nervously asking him to accompany him to class, and now his face was hard like a rock and he seemed angry with himself but at the same time confused. He was scaring Tyler.

Josh closed his eyes and Tyler observed him from where he was standing, not knowing what to do. He tried to read Josh's face, but it was empty. The only thing Tyler could see was Josh's scar, from where it had the lip ring, shake along with his lips. It was like Josh was having a battle with himself. Tyler looked down, thinking whether he should just say goodbye and enter the classroom or wait for Josh to open his eyes and say something.

"Tyler." Josh breathed and Tyler suddenly looked up at him, blinking and tightening his grip on his books.

"Yeah?"

Josh stared deeply into Tyler's eyes like he was trying to see something behind them. Tyler gulped and simply stared back. He felt his heart beat faster and faster every second and his hands were sweating, making his books slip a little.

He suddenly felt Josh's breath closer to his face.

_Fuck fuck fuck what are you doing, Josh?_

"I..." Josh said quietly, his eyes dropping to Tyler's lips.

_Oh my fucking God, don't you fucking dare._

Tyler looked down at Josh's lips as well, seeing as he wetted them with his tongue.

_FUCKING DARE!_

"You?" Tyler whispered, eyes daring up to Josh's as quickly as they went back to his lips.

_GO FOR IT_

Josh sighed and Tyler felt his hot breath hit his lips. "I..."

_KISS THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIPS_

"I gotta go. Bye." And just like that, his hot breath was gone and Josh left Tyler, not even letting him talk before he was disappearing through the crowd until Tyler couldn't see him anymore. Tyler just stood at the door, looking at the the rushed teenagers, not capable of moving. And he felt his eyes water.

Had he done something wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can kill me now.


	11. Bipolar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at this omg I have no idea where this is going, this makes no sense
> 
> AND I HAVE AN ANNOUNCMENT:
> 
> MY NEW FRIEND THEYFILLWITHFIRE IS PLANNING TO DO A FILM ABOUT THIS FIC. AND I AM VERY HONORED HOLY SHIT.
> 
> SO ONCE THIS FILM IS DUN (word aplication credit to Josh_Dun_trash) WE WILL ALL GET TOGETHER TO WATCH IT.  
> BRING SNACKS, POPCORN, RED BULL, TACO BELL...
> 
> THIS IS GOING TO BE SICK.
> 
>  Also,  
> There is a slight mention of cutting and bipolarity but it really is just to light up the mood... No one here is actually cutting or is bipolar... I have no intention of offending anyone and I'm aware that these are serious subjects that should be treated carefully... Again, I have no intentions of offending anyone. 
> 
> Guess what............. it's still monday

Tyler was panting loudly while his heart raced inside his chest, almost escaping through his ribs. Sweat covered Tyler's body. His legs were tired, shaking, while his body felt heavy and almost numb. The only thing Tyler could focus on was the person in front of him: also sweaty and panting, trying his best to keep his eyes open.

"Fuck" Tyler mumbled, squeezing his hands into fists to grab the person's shirt to keep himself steady in the same pace he was going.

"What the fuck, Tyler! Do you want me to trip?" Jenna screamed, turning her head back to glare at him, without stopping running, forcefully grabbing her t-shirt back from Tyler's grip.

Tyler let out a desperate groan, slowing down until he stopped running and he bent his back down, hands on his knees, squeezing his eyes, feeling drips of sweat dripping his face. He took deep breaths to try keep his heart race steady. Jenna rolled her eyes and sprinted on the same place, looking at her tired friend.

"Tyler, what are you doing?"

Tyler didn't bother to open his eyes, as he continued with his head down, feeling quick breezes pass by him, indicating that other students were still running, and most likely going to finish the run first. He didn't really care.

"Giving. Up." He answered dryly.

Jenna stopped sprinting and put her hands on her hips. She looked up to the sky for a moment, mumbling what seemed like "Oh God, what have I done wrong to deserve this? I've been putting up with Mark and Tyler for almost 10 years! Don't I deserve a break?!"

She blinked, trying to block the sun light craving into her eyes everytime she looked anywhere.

"Come on, Tyler, we're almost there!"

Hearing that, Tyler just moaned and fell defeated to the ground, laying back, arms and legs spread, as the hot sun hit his sweaty body.

"Josh was almost there too and he didn't go on!" He angrily screamed to the sky "So I'm not going on either!"

Jenna closed her eyes and took a deep breath, preparing herself to what was coming as soon as she asked the question.

She was going to regret it, anyway.

"What are you talking about?" She heard Tyler sigh deeply, like he had reached deep inside his lungs to take out the breath to sigh.

She waited, looking at him.

1

2

...

"When we were walking to my class this morning, Josh was acting strange but I didn't think much of it at the beginning but then the bell rang and people went crazy and I actually thought I was going to die with so many pushes I was getting but Josh held my hand to keep me going and I was so warm and happy but he seemed unfazed by the whole thing and then when we arrived the class room he was just quiet and weird again and suddenly he was super close and looking at my lips and I thought 'Oh my fucking God, I'm finally going to know how Joshua Dun's lips taste like!' but he disappeared almost as quickly as Mark when Megan Star asked him to be her first kiss on kindergarten."

As expected, Tyler talked quickly, barely pausing to breath between words. He let himself sink down his own proudness and swallow his own pride.

Joshua William Dun was a pain in the ass.

And fuck, he was not going to cry now.

"Tyler..." Jenna honestly didn't know what to say. She bit her lip, looking at Tyler.

"The worst part in all this is that today I have tutoring with him."

Jenna sighed, adjusting her pony tail before lightly kicking Tyler's foot. "Get up, Tyler." She said softly.

He slowly opened his eyes, furrowing them because of the brightness of the sun, and she reached out her hand for him, which he took it to help himself getting up. On his feet and dusting off his clothes and hair, Tyler was breathing heavily. He looked at her and she showed him a small understanding smile, nodding her head to indicate that they should continue running. He sighed again and let his legs move along with Jenna's.

He was fucked. 

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm fucked." Tyler mumbled, throwing himself to the chair in front of Mark after putting his lunch on the table.

Mark, busy poking his food with his fork, trying to figure out what the fuck was on his plate, raised his eyebrows at Tyler for a second. He didn't bother to ask, Tyler was going to tell him anyway.

And he did. Almost exactly every word put in almost the exact same place he had that morning when explaining to Jenna. When he was finished, Tyler sighed for the millionth time that day and sank even deeper in his chair until his eyes were on the level of the creepy thing on his plate and Mark could only see his messy hair and a bit of his forehead.

Mark put down the fork and put his hand on his chin, furrowing his eyes and focusing on the problem in hand.

Tyler sighed again. And in all honesty, he, himself, was already tired of his own sighs.

"Tough life man." Mark then shrugged, dropping out the subject by pronouncing his conclusion of a hard thinking time, and picked up his fork.

Tyler rolled his eyes, grabbing his sunglasses that were hanging on his black t-shirt and reaching for the back of his floral rob after, lifting it up over his head. "Thanks for the help, Mark." He spat, putting the robe over his head and then putting on his sunglasses over the robe. Maybe that way no would recognize him and slowly people would forget he existed, even if not many people knew in fact about his breathing existence, and he would disappear completely. Yeah. That's a good idea. Maybe he should _never_ take that _mask_ off his face... ever.

Mark didn't comment his friend's poor figure and filled his fork with the yellow thing that was supposed to be food. He stared at it for a moment. And after centuries, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, squeezing them, opening his mouth and slowly taking the _thing_ to his mouth.

"Are you really going to eat that?"

Mark suddenly closed his mouth. Since when did Jenna have a voice so deep? Mark then smirked, getting an idea. He turned to her, sticking the fork to her mouth. He started laughing, imagining her disgusted face, and he opened his eyes to see it in real HD.

But all he found was a chest. A strong one in fact. And strong chest covered with a The Misfits black t-shirt. A strong chest covered with a _dirty_ The Misfits black t-shirt. Mark gulped, slowly looking up, following the body in front of him, eyes passing through a yellow ball of food smashed against the person's t-shirt, close to his collar bone (if it had been Jenna, Mark was certain he would have got the food in her mouth) and then his eyes stopped on a nose ring and a red Mohawk.

Joshua Dun stood in front of him, raising his eyebrows. He didn't look that happy.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry." Mark quickly apologized "I thought you were Jenna and -"

"Jenna?" Josh interrupted him, looking weirdly at him and a bit offended "Does my voice sound that high to be confused with a girl?"

Mark widened his eyes, frankly shaking his head and bringing his hands up in defense. "No, no, no!" he quickly corrected "you don't." And he really didn't... "I was just expecting Jenna and.. " he trailed off.

Josh nodded.

Mark looked down at the yellow stain in Josh's shirt. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that." He apologized again, grabbing a napkin and standing up to clean Josh's shirt.

Josh tried to push him away. "Ok yeah, man, it's ok, you don't, you don't need to..."

"No, dude, let me." Mark argued following Josh's moves and dodging his arms that were trying to stop him "Let me do it."

"Man, no, it's ok."

"Dude"

"Don't -"

"Yeah no but -"

"I know but -"

"Stop, you don't -"

"Yes, I do."

"Yeah ok, do it."

Mark happily cleaned the shirt and Josh uncomfortably looked around, clearing his throat.

"There." Mark backed away, proudly admiring his work "All done." He grinned at Josh, throwing the dirty napkin to the table.

Josh nodded, unsure. "Yeah uh... thanks."

Mark nodded, still smiling. "What are you doing here?"

"I uh" Josh chuckled awkwardly and grabbed a thread of hair, curling it around his fingers "I came to apologize to Tyler."

"Oh yeah! I heard you almost kissed my dude, right?"

Josh suddenly dropped his hand numbly to his side and he quickly turned pale, looking sick. Painfully slowly, a pale shade of pink appeared on his cheeks. But he still looked pale as a ghost. Paler even. He gulped, his Adam's Apple moved up and down.

"I uh" his hands squeezed into nervous fists hanging loosely on his sides "uh I..."

Mark laughed, shaking his head."Relax, it's cool."

Josh's shoulders visibly relaxed and his face slowly recovered, bringing a bit of color to his skin's cells. He awkwardly laughed, drumming his fingers on his thigh.

"Yeah hmm and Tyler?"

Mark's eyes widened. "Tyler! Yeah Tyler, sorry. He's uh" he chuckled, scratching his head "he's right there." He pointed to the odd figure across the table, sunk on the chair so deep that almost only its floral with white sunglasses head and a bit of chest were on it while the body was half on the floor, half on air.

Josh blinked and looked at Mark questioningly and the guy just shrugged in response, grabbing a meatball of his plate and throwing it at the figure's direction, which landed right between the two lenses of the sunglasses.

"I'm awake, I'm awake! Take whatever you want but please don't kill me!" The startled body shook and slid off the chair to the floor with a thud in a suden.

"Tyler, Josh is here." Mark said with a bored voice. Hearing Josh's name, Tyler suddenly got up but hit is head with force on the table. Hurt, he slowly got out from the floor and under the table. Josh watched as the weird head appeared unsurely and Tyler hesitantly took off the glasses and the floral robe. He blinked, adjusting his eyes to the light and blushed madly, seeing Josh looking at him like he had two heads. He got up and dusted off his clothes, awkwardly clearing his throat. "Uh hi Josh" he smiled weakly.

"Hey, Ty" Josh chuckled, raising an eyebrow, the nickname rolling out of his lips flawlessly.

And Tyler shouldn't be having his stomach twisting or his heart warming up.

_God, Tyler, get yourself together, you should be mad at him!_

"I just came to apologize for my behavior this morning" he started, putting his hands on his jeans and balancing his body on his feet from the toes to the plant of his feet "I don't know what came over me, but I'm sorry for being rude to you."

Tyler's mouth opened and closed like a lost fish. He couldn't understand Josh's mind. First, the crazy flirty messages, then the blushing request to take him to class, then the stupid almost kiss shit and now... blushy apologizes.

_Come on, Joshy... help me out here..._

"Yeah, but you're still going to our lesson later, right?"

Tyler wrapped his robe around himself and crossed his arms above it, breathing in and out while trying to understand the situation.

"Yeah, yeah sure." Tyler nodded, not really thinking about what he was actually saying, his mind focus on the Joshua Dun in front of him.

Josh grinned. He seemed relieved.

And Jesus fucking Christ. Tyler was going to the lesson.

Oh fuck.

 

* * *

 

 

Oh fuck indeed.

The silence between the two was unbearable.

Tyler just wanted to cave a hole and die in it.

He would go the moon and not bother if the spaceship got lost in the middle of the space. He would live in the desert for the rest of his life and not bother if there was only enough water for a day.

 _Anything_ was better then being stuck with Josh in a library where he couldn't express his frustration by letting the goat inside of him scream at the top of its lungs.

Just awkward was not even enough of a word to describe it.

No.

Just awkward would be too small.

It was throat and wrists slicing, breath taking awkward.

"Hey Ty?" Josh mumbled suddenly.

Tyler's heart skipped a bit and he gulped. Not looking up from his book, he securely mumbled back a "Yeah, Joshy?"

Tyler could see Josh's faint smile from the corner of his eyes and he bit his lip to keep himself from smiling wide.

"Tomorrow my friends and I are going to this skateboarding competition and hmm..." Josh reached out for the rubber but instead of erase what he needed to, he spoon it around on the table "I was thinking... Maybe you could go... support me." Josh put down the rubber "Us, I mean, us. My friends and I. Support us."

Tyler giggled, continuing to write. "Yeah, I'll be there."

This William guy was bipolar...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you don't know it, what Tyler did with his robe and sunglasses really did happened, in Lollapalooza... you should just google the pictures. It's priceless.
> 
> Peace out, fuckers.


	12. Agitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, a girl who decided to write a twenty one pilots fanfiction. Things were going well until she started having 3 years break between each chapter.  
> Days later she was found virtually dead in her computer.  
> It is said that her readers murdered her.  
> That fact, unfortunatelly, has been not confirmed yet.
> 
>  
> 
> it's tuesday.
> 
> ly

"Uh..."

...

"So...?"

...

"What do you think?"

...

"Uh... no."

Jenna let out an exasperated groan and put her head in her hands. Mark scoffed and threw the paper sign carelessly to his side, and rested his head on the tree he was sat against, opening the bag of potato chips placed between his thighs.

Tyler simply bit his lip, glaring at his so called best friends.

Jenna dragged her hand down, still on her face, making the skin surrounding her eyes stop making contact with them, as she looked up at Tyler.

"What then?" She spat at him, massaging her cheeks.

Tyler rolled his eyes, moving to sit on his knees so he could reach for the paper. He examined the words written on it carefully before sighing, turning the front of the sign to Mark and Jenna.

"No." He repeated himself, not exactly answering Jenna's question, but hopefully making himself clearer than before. "Fuck no." He tried again.

Mark shoved a potato chip in his mouth, chewing it loudly, eyeing the sign on Tyler's hands.

**PLAY DRUMS IN MY BAND FOR THE TALENT SHOW, JOSHY**

It was in bright red and blue capital words, with smaller drawings of drums, a microphone, a piano and some notes splattered around the paper.

"It looks good to me." He shrugged, eating another chip.

Jenna eagerly nodded, stealing a chip from Mark's bag.

"We even added a supportive message to it!" She exclaimed, looking hopefully at Tyler, blinking her eyes sweetly, taking the chip to her teeth to bit it.

Tyler raised an eyebrow at her, turning the sign slightly to him.

On the corner, in small (really small) black words, he could in fact read

**P.S.: you can totally win this**

Tyler blinked at it before slowly raising his eyes to his friends. "You can't even read this from afar." He pointed out.

Tyler didn't know to which one of his _amazing_ and _comprehensive_ friends the _perfect_ and _infallible_ idea belonged. But he was not going to hold up that sign later in Josh's competition. Just no.

Jenna sighed. "Look, Tyler, we tried. Even Mark tried. You could at least give us some credit."

"Oh trust me, I'll give you all the credit. The credit is all yours. I don't want to have anything to do with this thing." He put the sign back on Mark's side and gripped the grass between his fingers.

"Tyler, you have less than a week until the talent show. You better ask Josh now."

"I will, Jenna... Just..." Tyler looked up, gripping the grass tighter. "Just not like this."

Mark popped another potato chip, throwing it to Tyler's face. "Dude, you _are_ going to do it _just like this_." He smirked.

"I can't." He looks around, watching the bored teenagers walking up the stairs and entering the school. "I would look stupid."

Tyler suddenly caught a shade of read hair jumping on his skateboard and slidding down the handrail flawless, laughing to Brendon who was shaking his head and smiling. He could barely see the grin on Josh's face as he perfectly landed on the ground, swatting up his skateboard just to grab it mid hair.

_That guy has to win..._

"When don't you look stupid?" Mark asked, spreading the chips bag to take another, but Tyler angrily swiped it away from his legs, glaring at him.

"Fuck you." He growled, opening the bag himself and taking out a big potato chip, dragging it to his mouth.

Mark chuckled, licking his salty fingers.

 

* * *

 

 

To wear the floral robe he had not bought on Forever 21 would be a little too risky after the cafeteria incident.

All black would look like he was going to a funeral instead of a big event under more than 100 degrees.

Too much color would just openly scream _yo Josh, I'm gay, come kiss me_.

Tyler was not one to actually care much about what clothes to wear. He normally threw on a pair of black skinny jeans and the first clean shirt he grabbed, while his feet were almost everyday inside of a pair of floral Vans.

But this time he had no idea where his bed was, under the amount of clothes he hadn't known he possessed.

Nothing seemed good enough to wear to support Josh.

_And his friends._

Support Josh _and_ his friends.

And yes, Tyler was aware of the informality of the event. It was a skateboarding competition after all... people wouldn't exactly walk around in a suit and tie... But Tyler wanted to cause a good impression, for some unknown reason. It was not every day someone besides Jenna, Mark or his parents asked him to leave his house to do something not school or shopping related.

_More like - it's not every day I get asked in a date..._

_..._

_It's..._

_It's not..._

_..._

_It's not a date, Tyler..._

_..._

_Is it?_

Tyler dropped the bright yellow shorts he had been considering taking.

Was it a date?

No... He was going to support Josh _and his friends_ while they were competing. Josh probably wouldn't even have the opportunity to talk to him. He would probably be busy all the time doing whatever he had to do and meet whoever he had to meet... Girls maybe...

No, it's not a date.

Josh didn't specified it though...

No, Tyler, it's not a date. He sighed, taking out the last piece of clothing from the wardrobe, throwing the jeans to one of the piles in the room. He scratched his head, blinking at the amount of clothes thrown across the room.

_Damn... that's a lot of clothes..._

He started by picking a pair of red skinny jeans and a red Adidas jacket.

_Jesus, Tyler..._

He bit his lip, looking at the red figure on the mirror.

_You look like you're going to a sports event for blood cancer..._

Tyler groaned, walking up to the pile of clothes to search for his phone that was likely under the mess. If he wanted things well done, he would just call Jenna.

He bit his lip, listening to the phone ring, impatiently walking around the few empty spaces in the bedroom.

A fainted hello came from the other side of the phone and Tyler let out a whimpering of relief, accidentally tripping on a pair of boxers and falling deep inside one of the piles.

"Tyler? Tyler, are you there?"

"Mmhfh!" Tyler tried to speak, muffled by the clothes squashing him. He frankly shoved them away, popping his head and his arm up, holding the phone to his ear. "I'm here!"

"Oh hey"

"I need you." Tyler told her, getting his other hand out of the pile.

"Ok what's up?"

"I" he stopped when a blue Spiderman sock fell in front of his eyes. He slowly grabbed it to throw it somewhere to the other side of the bed. "I don't know what to wear."

Jenna sighed and Tyler could picture her closing her eyes and massaging the sides of her own forehead.

"Tyler..."

He bit his lip, leaning back on the comfort of his clothes.

"Have you tried that baby blue t-shirt I got you for your birthday that you never wore?"

"It has the Justin Bieber's face on it, Jenna."

"Well, it's not my fault the woman behind me switched bags with me."

Tyler shook his head, not caring that Jenna couldn't see him.

"I don't know, just wear what you would wear on any other day."

Tyler whined, closing his eyes.

"But this is not 'any other day', Jenna!" he raised his voice "It's Josh we're talking about."

"You're going to a skateboard competition!" Jenna exasperatedly screamed "It's not that big of a deal!"

_'Not that big of a deal' my ass._

_Of course it is a big deal!_

_A huge deal!_

_Fucking Joshua Dun is going to be there._

_The deal is so big, not even the world's best drug dealer could handle it_.

"It's Josh we're talking about!" Tyler cried as he let himself sink back on the clothes.

"Yes, it is. That's why you shouldn't care so much. Do you think Josh would give importance to whatever you'll wear?! You could go in a vampire costume and he wouldn't give a flying fuck about it, goddamnit!"

Tyler pouted to himself, looking down as he played with the sleeves of a shirt. "I just don't want to look bad." He said quietly, almost in a whisper.

"Tyler, honey" Jenna's voice softened "Wear something you feel comfortable in. You'll look good, don't worry, ok?"

Tyler's eyes raised, landing on a white t-shirt covered in tiny spots of what looked like thrown paint by a small paint brush. He smiled to himself.

"Ok."


	13. Skateboard Competition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know last chapter wasn't exactly interesting but I kinda missed those crazy comments... Nonetheless I'm still gratefull with what I got. You guys are sick as frick.
> 
> Anyway here's a long chapter with what I hope is a nice twist.
> 
>  
> 
> Still tuesday.

Maybe it was the way the sun hit the fluorescent orange of it, making it annoyingly outstand by shining even brighter than fucking sun itself. Maybe it was because it was fucking long sleeved and the sun had decided this was the perfect day to turn into a terrorist and melt the entire earth with its powerful hot lasers, commonly called ultraviolet radiation. Maybe it was just because it had been Pete's idea. But maybe, just maybe, it was because he didn't like one bit the way he looked on it or how it looked on the rest of his team. Probably.

Besides, fluorescent orange didn't exactly go well with bright red hair.

"Forget it, we're not wearing this shit." He mumbled more to himself than to Brendon who was on the mirror next to him, starring dumbfounded at the orange overall he was also wearing.

"This is latex, Josh." Brendon whispered, looking wide eyed and terrified to himself at the mirror.

Josh scoffed and felt a light shiver going through his spine. "I'm aware." He didn't hesitate, ripping off of the suit quickly before it melted into him.

Brendon kept starring at himself, looking up and down. Josh couldn't blame him. He threw away the overalls carelessly and walked up to the closet so he could grab a t-shirt. He turned his head when the room door opened and Dallon ran in, an annoyed look on his face and some orange overalls on his hand. He angrily opened the trash can and threw the piece of clothe in there.

"I'm going to kill him." Dallon rushed to the closet and Josh stepped aside instantly, watching his friend's expression. "No." He took off his shirt. "I'm going to make him eat his own fucking Spiderman suit and then kill him." He grabbed a t-shirt and put it on. He groaned, stopping to look at Brendon. Dallon raised his eyebrows at Josh who just shrugged back. Dallon snapped his fingers in front of Brendon.

"Wake up."

Brendon blinked looking up at Dallon and instantly blushing. Dallon rolled his eyes "Take that shit off, man."

Brendon sighed, fidgeting with the thing that seemed to be completely glued to his body. "Where's Pete?" he asked, doing his best to roll the suit down his chest. "I wanna rip his head off. Nothing personal, though."

Dallon scoffed, patting Brendon's shoulder. "Join the club."

"I wonder what the fuck he was thinking when he ordered this stuff." Josh rolled his eyes, leaning back on the closet and crossing his arms. "He spent money on this. Actual money."

"I understand the whole latex thing being easy to slide through the air and shit" Dallon objected, watching Brendon fight for his life with a latex suit. "but fuck we're not motherfucking Spiderman!"

"Was he" Brendon panted, squeezing his belly and trying to slide the overalls off "was he really" he managed to roll a bit of the suit but it stopped at his hips and he groaned, sticking his butt up and doing his best to push the suit down "was he really - GODDAMNIT!" He screamed, jumping on his place, cursing his life, Pete and the latex suit.

Dallon sighed and went to help him, kneeling in front of him and grabbing the suit and slowly pushing it down Brendon's legs. "Jesus" Brendon whispered, supporting himself on Dallon's shoulders to step away from the suit. "Thanks" he mumbled as Dallon got up. Brendon accepted the overalls from Dallon and threw them to the bed, looking back at Josh. "Was he really expecting us to wear these things for the competition today?! The guy went nuts, I tell you."

Suddenly, a crash was heard from the other side of the door. The three guys looked at each other confused, until they recognized Patrick yelling. "I'm going to punch you in the face so hard you're gonna see fucking latex suits flying around your head, Wentz!"

The door opened and Pete hurriedly walked in, proudly wearing the polemic fluorescent overalls. Patrick came running after him, yelling. "What the fuck were you thinking?" He smacked the back of Pete's head and Pete winced, rubbing it, turning to glare at Patrick.

Seeing Pete about to argue back, Josh decided to walk out, picking up his skateboard that was next to the door. He stopped by the kitchen to grab a soda from the fridge before leaving Pete's house. Outside, Josh sighed, leaning against the wall, opening the can to take a sip from the cold liquid, tasting it on his tongue. He watched as people of all ages, mostly teenagers wearing clothes twice their size, gathered on the few benches around the skate park and the unfortunates who didn't find sits choosing the better place to stand and watch the competition.

This was an annual local competition, quite popular among people of all ages. Some families and friends liked to take this opportunity to reunite, couples took their children... As a local event, and one with some history of various generations, people went there even after their young years of teenage hood. Josh's father used to take him to this competition every year, like his own father used to do. Josh remembers the bench he and his father always sat on, he remembers the smell of the home made popcorn his mother always packed for them popping from the small red bag on his small shoulders.

Josh even had his own idol there, Jim Wood, an average 17 year old boy who, back then, went to the same school as Josh. Struggling with his grades, trying to follow the dream of being a known world skater champion... He handed up married to his best girl friend and with twins, owning a small sports store where every local skater goes to. Today Jim wasn't a world champion but had won the Ohio skateboard challenge with 19 years old, which made him just as happy.

Josh remembers watching Jim Wood shinning on only a board over four small wheels and wanting to be like him. Josh had always wanted to be there too and do what Wood did. And he did. Josh managed to enter the competition with 15 years old and be there every following years until now, with Pete, Brendon, Dallon and Debby on his team and Patrick supporting every step by their side. Josh now felt what he had always wanted to feel: the adrenalin, the little butterflies before every competition as he saw the amount of people there to watch him.

But today... Today he felt different. Almost... foreign. He didn't know why. The slight change of Tyler Joseph being one of the people sat on those same benches might had passed Josh's mind, but he wouldn't admit it. He just had this feeling that this year, more than every other, he had to give his best and not fuck up.

"Gosh" he heard someone whisper, and he turned to the door to see the one and only Debby Ryan, the only skater girl on the competition, leaving the house with the fluorescent orange latex overalls perfectly wrapped around her body, almost glued, showing off curves Josh didn't knew she had but instantly became more attracted to. She was pulling her blond hair up, making it messier than it usually was, biting her lip and crunching her nose, the ring on it going up with. Josh's eyes widened almost immediately, seeing her like that. Debby was probably the most attractive girl Josh knew, he had to admit it, and those latex overalls weren't making it easier for him to stop thinking about his best friend's hotness. He suddenly heard himself accidentally groan as he felt his stupid male hormones working his way up and down his body. That made Debby quickly turn her head, startled, and she dropped her hands down, big eyes widening slightly at Josh. He could swear a faded blush crossed her cheeks.

"Oh" she giggled, raising an eyebrow, something she could do quite well, and replacing her startled expression with a smirk "Hello there, Dun" She crossed her arms against her, and Josh gulped when her chest raised lightly. He focused on her eyes, taking another sip of his soda. Debby widened her eyes the best she could, staring back at Josh and he chocked on his drink, letting out a laugh. He breathed in, smiling as she laughed too, feeling relaxed after the tension he felt on his mind and body.

"What was that I heard just a minute ago?" Josh asked, turning completely to her, still with his body resting on the wall. Debby's smile fell and an annoyed look spread on her face instead and she rolled her eyes, walking to Josh and positioning herself on the wall like he was, so close to him that he could feel her hot breath on his collarbones.

"Pete" she simply replied, shaking her head.

He chuckled. "The overalls"

Debby couldn't help but roll her eyes again. "I'm a girl."

"Yeah well, I'm aware." He looked at her confused. "And I'm pretty sure Pete is too."

"No!" Debby whined, trying to sound annoyed but failing when a small laugh escaped in the middle of the word. "I mean" she gestured to herself "Have you noticed how I fucking look on this?" She angrily got off the wall away from Josh so he look at her properly. He quickly brought the soda to his lips to stop himself from thinking what he wasn't supposed to, because _of course_ he had noticed how she fucking looked like.

"I look like a slut!" She screamed, putting her hands on get hips. "No offense to them, but I look like a fucking slut, Josh!"

He dropped his jaw at her. "What? No, you don't." He walked up to her, leaving his skate on the ground. "You look really hot, I'll give you that, but you do not look like a slut, Debby."

She looked up at him and they stood there staring at each other's eyes until she groaned exasperatedly. "Fine, Josh, whatever you say, but I still don't like it, and I'm not gonna wear this shit." She pouted and stole the can of soda

from his hand, taking it to her lips. Josh smiled, chuckling. "Lucky for you, none of us is happy with Pete's poor choice of clothes so we're not gonna use them."

"Thank God."

She threw her head back, letting out a breath if relief and he chuckled again, leaning in to her and whispering to her year "but I bet guys would _pay to see you_ in that."

Debby gasped, hitting on his arm, but he just laughed, grabbing the soda back to take another sip but coming across an empty can and a smirking friend. He frowned.

"Look at these two love birds."

Debby's smirk dropped and Josh's shoulders fell, hearing that unfortunately familiar voice behind them. They both turned to see Alex Jones and his team whose names they had never really caught, one of their adversary teams, but more than adversary, enemy.

"What do you want, Jones?" Debby crossed her arms, looking straight at him, since he was about the same height as her, which meant, shorter than Josh. A fact that didn't stop him from being quite intimidating. Even with his boney body.

Alex didn't go to Josh's school, being home schooled his entire life, but still with a very popular social position. His father was the coordinator of the park's construction and maintenance and for some reason it made Alex feel like the king of the park and, consequently, of its regulars.

Alex chuckled at Debby in a mocking tone and Josh automatically got closer to her almost as on instinct, glaring. Alex's laugher quickly died down and he looked at Josh, grinning. "Haven't lost your _punkness_ yet?"

Josh's glare deepened, if possible. "Haven't lost your _assholeness_ yet?"

Alex's grin quickly disappeared and he scoffed. "Been 4 years. Do you think you and your lame friends have any chances this year?"

Even after all this time, Josh's team had never done better than reaching the second place. On the other hand, Alex's had won the last two years in a row.

Josh still chuckled. "I don't know, depends on if daddy pushes the judges' strings again or not."

Next to him, Debby broke down in a fit of giggles and Alex's face colored with anger. Alex hurried to Josh, standing just an inch far away from him and looking up at him with nose almost touching Josh's chin.

"Listen here, punk" he pressed a finger to Josh's muscled chest, slightly taken aback as he remembered how the red head was so much stronger than him, but quickly recovering as he glared "you better shut your mouth or you won't even step in your skate today."

Josh took a step back, lifting his hands up in defense, trying to hide his amusement. "Chill, man."

Debby was still laughing at the two of them.

"Also, back off, 'cause the trophy's mine."

Josh let out a small snort, shutting his mouth with his hand and widening his eyes at Jones, fighting off another laugh.

"Yeah we'll see about that."

Alex glared one more time before walking away and motioning for his team mates to follow him like lost puppies. It was too cliche to be true...

Debby sighed, wiping a single tear that had fell while she laughed and she shook her head.

"I'm surprised that he didn't even comment on these stupid overalls."

Josh shrugged. "Probably too engrossed on his ego and fear of losing."

Debby smiled, patting Josh's shoulder. "Well, I'm gonna take this shit off, see you on the field, Dun." She smirked, blowing him a kiss and winking.

 

* * *

 

Scratch the little butterflies on his stomach.

Josh had fucking eagles inside him.

For some reason, he found himself frankly looking around through the people surrounding the skate park, but not knowing exactly what or who to look for. Maybe something to ease the foreign feeling on his chest and calm him down.

He felt a soft hand on his shoulder. "Looking for someone?" Josh didn't need to turn to see the owner of the hand and voice. He could recognize Patrick from miles away.

"No... Yes? I don't know." Josh sighed, still with his eyes locked on the small but significant crowd.

"Nervous?"

Josh but his lip, deciding to look at his friend.

"Yes?" it came out unintentionally as a question "Maybe. I don't know, man, I just feel weird."

Patrick sent him an apologetic smile and opened his mouth to speak but frowned, looking behind Josh. "Hey, isn't that your friend? Taylor? No... T-"

"Tyler" Josh whispered, more to himself than to Patrick, when he immediately turned around, not hearing his friend's small 'yeah, that'.

Tyler Joseph was awkwardly standing by the bench area entering, with his two friends, one on each side of him, looking like bodyguards. Tyler had his arms wrapped around his small skinny frame and was looking at everywhere around him, looking lost and out of his natural habit. Josh felt the urge to run to him and take him somewhere else far from the crowded place they were at. However, he felt a weird feeling smacking the back of his head.

"Yo, Tyler's here." Pete happily shouted, going to Patrick and putting an arm around his shoulder.

"Tyler? Who's Tyler?" Debby asked, confused, standing by Josh's side and he wrapped an arm around her waist, out of habit, and pushed her even closer. She was looking at Josh, expecting him to answer.

"He's a guy I tutor." He explained, shrugging. "He's actually pretty cool."

He caught a look back to Tyler's direction to see him biting his lip nervously, seeming to be ignoring his friends as they talked. Suddenly Tyler stopped dead on his tracks, looking somewhere Josh couldn't see due to the distance, completely freezed and then turned his back to the park, wanting to go to the opposite direction. Josh frowned as he saw the blond girl Josh slightly recalled as Jenna groan loudly enough for him to hear and grabbing Tyler's shirt, pushing him backwards to her and turning him back to the park. Josh tried to read Tyler's expression, even from afar, and he could see he was annoyed with his friends that kept pushing him forward while he tried to fight back and walk away.

"Josh's friend, if you get me." Pete replied grinning at Josh.

Josh sighed, shaking his head and giving Debby a light squeeze before letting go of her to pick up his skateboard.

Debby chuckled, raising an eyebrow at Josh. "Cheating on me already?"

He laughed and ruffled her hair, bending down to peck her cheek. "Wouldn't think of it." He played along.

Debby laughed and picked up her skateboard as well.

"Are you done flirting now?" Brendon asked from his spot, sitting dangerously close to Dallon. Debby rolled her eyes, smacking his thigh. "It's just because Tyler's coming to here like right now."

Josh's eyes widened and he quickly turned around to see Tyler hesitantly walking up to them, hands on his pockets. Tyler glanced to his back, mouthing something and Jenna just sent him a warning look and waved her hand, motioning him to continue. Tyler sighed and did what was told, walking painfully slowly until he finally reached a significant distance from Josh (after almost tripping on himself) but one that he apparently found reasonable because that's where he stopped, looking at Josh.

"Hey" Tyler greeted him, putting his hands on his pockets.

Josh couldn't help but instantly grin at the boy a few feet away in front of him. "Hello, Ty. You came." He sounded happier then he had planned.

Tyler chuckled, blushing madly, but surprisingly not looking down and actually glance up at Josh. "Yeah, how could I not. Joshua Dun invited me."

Josh grinned wider. "Yes he did, and it was probably one of his best ideas ever. He must be a damn awesome person to come up with such an amazing idea like that."

Wait... Was Josh flirting?

Tyler's cheeks got even redder but an unusual attempted soft smirk appeared above it. "He is." His voice trembled a bit but strangely didn't lack of confidence. "He's actually pretty awesome." This time his voice came clear and with confidence, his smirk getting wider.

Until...

"And cute, he's pretty cute too."

A hand slapped soundly above his mouth and Tyler's eyes widened, his face reddening even deeper, to the point Josh couldn't distinguish him from a tomato.

But Josh surely wasn't much different than him, because he could feel himself getting a bit warmer as a barely noticeable blush found his way up his cheeks. Probably managing to notice this, Tyler slowly took his hand of his mouth, giggling like an authentic school girl and biting the point of his index finger, innocently looking at Josh.

Josh bit his lip, looking at him, but still chuckling, keeping his cool and completely ignoring the light warm on his cheeks. "Nah, he's nothing compared to you."

And then Josh actually thought Tyler could explode at any moment. He had never seen so much red in his entire life.

"Ok, before Tyler catches fire" Dallon threw a knowing look at both Josh and Tyler and Josh chuckled while all the blood existent on Tyler's body accumulated on his face "we have to go, we're about to start."

Josh nodded. "Yeah go ahead, I'll catch you guys in a second."

His friends walked away but not before Debby winked at Josh, making him roll his eyes and she giggled, blowing him another kiss. Josh smiled and turned back to Tyler who was staring unpleasantly at Debby's back.

"Tyler?" Josh waved his hand in front of him to have his attention back and he blinked.

"Uh? Oh sorry"

"I have to go. But stay after the competition, please? I'd like to spend some time with you." Josh winked.

Tyler smiled. "Yeah sure, but what if you win? Won't you, like, want to celebrate with your friends?"

Josh shrugged. "Don't worry, if I win, then I'd rather celebrate with you."

 

 

~~It would be a lie if Josh said he didn't notice the sign on Mark's hands a bit further away from them...~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have, beautiful motherfuckers, hope I made you happier.


	14. Huge Kickflip Over Tyler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey dear friends.  
> Here.  
> I present you the 14th chapter.  
> Hope you like it.
> 
> Still tuesday btw
> 
> Luv u

Tyler watched Josh turn away from him and run towards his team, quickly catching up with the blonde girl and jumping on her back, causing them both to almost completely loose their balance. He bit his lip, breathing in the fresh scent of mint Josh had left behind. He grabbed the hem of his t-shirt with both hands, spreading the elastic as far as he could, feeling his stomach squeeze inside him as the girl threw her head back, laughing.

Tyler suddenly heard a small crack beneath his stomach and he looked down at his hands to see that, without noticing, he had ripped the hem of his own t-shirt from spreading the elastic so hard.

He looked up again, trying to find Josh and the unknown girl but he only came across with a crowd of skaters going up to their places. Tyler settled with glaring to them all. Hopefully they would all burn and there would be no chance for that girl to take away _his_ Josh.

He couldn't believe it.

Maybe Josh really was straight as fuck...

Maybe Tyler would never really get to know how those amazing lips of Josh's tasted, never get to know the feel of Josh deep inside him and their bodies glued together, never get to feel Josh's fingers grasp his own and squeezing his hand lightly as a form of comfort and assurance, would never have Josh's strong arms wrapped around his skinny and fragile waist after a playfully angry pillow fight at midnight and... he would really never get to hear a gay ass 'I love you' coming out from deep inside Josh's throat and heart.

He wanted to cry.

Because that girl was already ruining his life and he barely knew her, or didn't know her at all. She was just some stain in a clean white shirt.

But then again, Joshua was actually _openly flirting_ with the loser he was...

Tyler crumbled back to his friends' direction, letting out a long breath of either frustration or relief.

He was beyond confused.

"Was it that bad?" Mark asked, raising his eyebrows pointedly, hitting Tyler's back as form of congratulation for him having a higher confidence, but only sending his skinny body forward and almost knocking him to the ground. Tyler was so upset with a certain blonde person that he didn't even care to glare at Mark.

_I just found out Josh has a possible future girlfriend (or God knows if she isn't his motherfucking girlfriend already) hanging on his back._

_It was terrific._

_I'm about to throw up even, from how pumped I got._

Not waiting for a response, Mark shoved the sign in Tyler's chest and Tyler was forced to grab it. And he hadn't noticed his hands were shaking until he collected the sign safely in his hands and noticed the small tremble on it's edges. He softly groaned to himself.

He didn't answer, but Mark didn't seem to care because Tyler was suddenly pushed forward by his back, making him walk with Mark. It wasn't until then that he noticed Jenna's absence. He frowned.

"Where's Jenna?"

Mark shrugged, pushing him with a little more force than before. "Dunno, don't care. She disappeared seconds after you started eye fucking Josh."

Tyler's frown deepened. Jenna was the one who was making him do all that and she was the one who should pick up the pieces of his broken heart, seeing that stupid girl drooling over his Joshy. But she disappeared. He felt the urge to simply walk away from there so he didn't have to see Josh and his little new friend who he very much would like to murder in cold blood.

But before he knew it, Mark was forcing him down in one of the sits that gave him full vision of the skate park and, _luckily_ , of Joshua Dun and his freaking team.

 _Great_.

 

* * *

 

 

Tyler was surprised he still had the capacity of hearing.

Mark had chosen the best sits, carefully put just in front of some abnormally enormous speakers that was constantly throwing up sounds and screams that were apparently called _music._

_Yes._

_Sure._

_On his ass._

The kid in front of him kept screaming for his mother to give him milk while the mother obnoxiously screamed back what Tyler could hear as "Calm down, Andrew, mommy's not a cow!"

He could swear he saw the man by the woman's side rolling his eyes and whisper to himself something like "You sure look like one."

Next to him, Mark was cracking open bags of potato chips, shoving a hand full of them and chewing loudly and painfully slowly with his mouth opened, occasionally getting his lips around the straw of his Pepsi and sucking on it until he couldn't breath anymore.

And he had already lost count of how many times the girl behind him had popped her balloon gum right in his holy hears.

Tyler wanted to scream.

He couldn't really do anything about the speakers or the baby, so he decided to turn to Mark, smiling sweetly.

"If you don't stop being so fucking loud while eating, I'll shove all the food down your throat. Plastic included."

Mark rolled his eyes but did as told, closing his mouth while he chewed another potato chip. Tyler breathed out a small annoyed thank you and turned to the girl behind him, who had some headphones on that were too big for her head. She was looking down, leaning forward on her sit and resting her cheek on her hand while the arm was supporting itself on her leg. He cleared his throat first, honestly hoping she would magically hear him and look up from her black polished fingernails and her Nike shoes. As expected, she didn't even flinched, so he hesitantly tapped her knee until she finally noticed him.

"Uh... Hi." He tried, gulping when she raised her eyebrows at him, clearly annoyed. "Do you think you could maybe stop popping your gum, please?"

She gave him an amused look and leaned back, carelessly resting her back on the speakers while looking Tyler up and down. Tyler shifted uncomfortably in his place, awkwardly clearing his throat and look away for a second before meeting her painted face again. She hadn't moved and was still unresponsive, only eyeing him like a piece of meet.

_Does she want to murder me or something?_

He unconsciously reached on his back for Mark's knee and gripped him like his life depended on him. "Did-did you hear me?"

But the girl chuckled, grinning at him and he only squeezed his friend's knee harder.

 _She does want to_.

Tyler gulped again, carefully turning around and fixing his eyes on the skaters down on the park.

He suddenly didn't mind that popping sound at all.

"I'm back."

Tyler glanced to his left, seeing Jenna letting out a long tired breath and happily putting her back on her lap, tapping on it and humming out a tune. Tyler became suddenly slightly worried.

"Where were you?"

"My mom called."

Tyler was about to say something back when the speaker behind him suddenly stopped playing that music, replacing it with a loud masculine voice that sent Tyler to the edge of his sit, startled.

"'Sup Columbus?" The voice shouted, earning cheerful screaming from the crowd.

Tyler sighed, sinking down on his sit and crossed his arms over his chest, silently hearing the teams being introduced one by one. Before he could register what was happening, when Josh's team name burst out through the speakers, he felt Jenna stiffening in her place and then squeal, quickly turning to his side and getting a hand on his face, pushing him back, accidentally sticking her pinkie on his mouth as she forcefully stole the sign he had been keeping safely in his lap, hoping that neither her or Mark would remember it. His plan had apparently back fired because, when he was finally free, Jenna was already standing and eagerly jumping up and down, holding up the sign above her head.

"JOSH! JOSH! JOSH!" she kept repeating his name in a steady rhythm coordinated with her jumps.

And Tyler dropped his jaw, almost hitting the ground.

"What the fuck are you doing, Jenna? Give me that." Tyler hissed seriously. But the girl wouldn't hear him, Josh's name escaping her lips like a broken record. "Jenna!" He tried to grab the sign from her hands but she successfully dodged it.

Tyler widened his eyes, still not believing what she was doing, until he found Josh's eyes search through the crowd.

_Nononono!_

He wasted no time before he was jumping on Jenna, knocking her on the ground, sitting on her hips and kicking her legs to keep her still as he tried to reach for the sign that she exasperatedly tried to hold up and far away from him. She was still screaming Josh's name so Tyler snapped a hand over her mouth to shut her, desperate sounds coming out of their grasp. But then Jenna had one hand on his eyes and he was blindly searching for the stupid sign that she was still holding. Screaming in frustration, Tyler kneeled her stomach, not enough to hurt her but still enough to make her crawl under him and then he finally felt the sign touching his finger and he grabbed it quickly, getting off Jenna.

"Crazy woman!" Tyler panted, getting the sign behind him and looking wide eyed at the girl who was now getting up. To prevent her from getting a hold of that again, Tyler ripped it in two, blocking out the sound of a surprised gasp rolling out of her mouth.

 

* * *

 

 

Tyler knew Josh was good. He skated now and then, did those awesome tricks that you think can only happen on TV, didn't fall off the board that often...

But God, Tyler had never seen something like that. Josh's hair looked like a flame floating above him and he looked like an absolute angel flying up and down on his skateboard.

No. Not an angel.

An alien.

Because those moves were out of this world.

And Jesus Christ he had taken off his t-shirt at some point and, even from afar, Tyler could see his defined muscles stiff and slowly relax as he breathed in and out. And sweat was dripping down his skin, making it glow. And then he's grabbing the red curls of his wet air and - god - Tyler just wanted - _needed_ \- to feel that hair in his own hands and pull Josh down with it, down towards his lips, his body, his di-

Oh

Oh

Tyler was suddenly biting his lip and trying to look away, embarrassed.

Now it's not the time to get all worked up, Robert.

But Josh was breathing heavily and his chest was moving, and he had his hands on his neck, the muscles on his arm visibly going up in all its greatness and-

"Tyler, you're going to crush those popcorns."

Tyler blinked, turning to Mark who was raising an eyebrow and pointing to Tyler's lap. Tyler looked down, realizing that he had been grasping onto the almost empty popcorn paper cup and squeezing it hard. Tyler slowly but instantly let go of it, letting out a long breath. He blinked again, now finding the sweat golden popcorns more interesting than the competition, and he numbly popped out one to his mouth, chewing it with boredom.

_I wonder if Josh tastes like popcorn..._

Tyler mentally groaned and squeezed his eyes, unconsciously crushing the paper cup again.

"Yeah, I'll have that." Tyler heard Mark and felt the cup being taken away from him.

Tyler sank on his sit, resting his head back and looking up at the sky, the occasional purple half bubble gum appearing into sight and mixing with the blue sky.

He shouldn't had come.

Suddenly a popcorn landed right in the middle of his eyes and he furrowed his eyes, trying to look at it, but only ending up slightly dizzy. He chose to search for the origin of the popcorn, eyes stopping on Mark's bored expression.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and actually do something." Mark told him, not wasting time looking at his friend and turning right around to the skate park.

_Yeah. If I did something, I would jump on Josh and fuck his straightness away._

Tyler opened his mouth to speak but was forced to close it when the screams of the crowd got suddenly loudly and angrier than before. Confused, Tyler slowly raised his head and then his body, wanting to see what was the cause of such noise, but only came in contact with a bunch of backs jumping and moving. He had no option but to get up from his sit as well and try to pick over the people's shoulders. Standing on his tiptoes, he finally found a spot between the previous crying child's mother and the other man, from where he could at least see the closest team to his set of benches. Leaning down, Tyler recognized that team as Josh's and then, a bit further away, an angry small guy walked towards them, a bunch of other guys following him. Tyler furrowed his eyebrows even more confused at sight.

He noticed Brendon roll his eyes and crossing his arms, leaning closer to Dallon, who supported himself on Brendon's shoulder, with a bored expression looking straight at the guy. Pete, on the other hand, glared at him while Josh and the girl looked annoyed. Tyler couldn't decipher the guy's angry words, but could clearly see an amused expression on Josh's face. The guy kept spitting at Josh's team until the girl suddenly grabbed the microphone from the judges table. She screamed at the crowd to calm down and Tyler looked around, hearing the screams and yells slowly die down.

"Ok, since mister Jones here thinks he's so great" she looked away from the crowd to the angry guy "for this last round, I challenge Dun to do the huge kickflip over those stairs over there." She pointed somewhere and Tyler struggled to shift in his place and looking around until he followed the people's gaze, eyes landing on a set of ten steps a few feet away from them. He heard a few people on the crowd gasp and murmurs quickly filled the benches area and the park's surroundings. Tyler blinked. He didn't know what a 'huge kickplip' was, but the 'huge' part didn't sound much welcoming. Or safe.

Tyler looked back at the team, carefully eyeing Josh, who was widening his eyes at the girl like she had just murdered a poor cat. The rest of the team had the same expression printed on their faces, looking at each other worriedly, while she just smirked back.

Yep, the _huge_ definitely couldn't be safe...

Tyler saw the guy, apparently with the name of Jones, scoff and smirk as well, but in a mocking way. Salvado raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. "You really think Dun is actually capable of that?"

Despise his nervous appearance, Josh still glared at him before walking closer to the girl, unsurely leaning down to her hear. Since the microphone was still being held up to her mouth, a muffled sound came out of the speakers and Tyler could catch the question rolling out of Josh's lips "Are you out of your mind?!"

To which she just shrugged, not letting the smirk disappear from her lips. "Oh come on, Josh, you can do it. You've been practicing it for over a year."

Tyler's chest was getting suddenly heavier, wondering what was going on.

Brendon stepped in, putting a hand on Josh's shoulder. "Maybe she's right, Dun." He bit his lip, glancing at the girl, than at the crowd and back to his nervous friend. "You've almost nailed it the last few times."

Josh gasped, and rolled his eyes, holding his skate up, under his arm. "Yeah, _almost_ , Brendon. I never actually did it."

Brendon shrugged. "Maybe it's time for you to do it then." He patted Josh's shoulder and walked back to his previous spot by Dallon's side.

Josh closed his eyes and Tyler could physically see him take deep breaths to calm himself down.

This was not looking good.

"Oh come on, look at him, he's literally a frightened chicken." Jones laughed, shaking his head "Give him a break. He won't do it. Just hand me the trophy and get this over with."

Tyler felt a sudden range build up in his chest and he felt the urge to actually go down there and punch the guy's face with all the strength he had. How dared he saying Josh couldn't do something?! Josh could do anything! And who the fuck did that guy think he was to even express such opinion verbally?! How dared he even thinking that Josh wasn't going to win that thing?!

Suddenly Josh was furiously and hurriedly walking away from the skater group and towards the stairs, leaving a trail of worried but proud looks on his team's faces. Tyler watched Josh carefully as he slowly looked down the stairs for a moment before nodding to himself and quickly standing back a few feet away from the set. The minute he put his skateboard down, everybody went silent. Not even a bird could be heard. Tyler was getting even more concerned about the situation, but decided against actually questioning someone about it. So he chose to watch his crush closing his eyes and taking a big long deep breath. Josh's bare muscled chest was bumping visibly hard and he was drumming his fingers in the air, muttering words to himself that even with the complete silence of the park, Tyler still couldn't hear. But then Josh was opening his eyes like someone had startled him and he looked straight ahead, fixing his eyes on the set of stairs in front of him. He placed his right foot on the wooden board and suddenly it seemed too thin and fragile to even hold Josh's body and the air became to thick to enter Tyler's nose. Josh put the other foot back behind him, and positioned himself by slightly leaning forward, eyes aiming to the stairs. And - oh

_Oh_

_Fuck_

_No_

_Josh_

_Don't_

_Don't do that_.

Tyler's breath hitched as he finally realized what was going to happen.

_Please_

Josh took another breath.

_I'll do whatever you want, Joshy._

_But please, I still want to meet you after this and I promise I'll ask you to go to the talent show with me_.

"Don't forget you said that." A feminine voice whispered in his ear. "If he gets out of this alive, you'll ask him."

Tyler didn't even bother to fight back Jenna, because her words stuck in his head.

_If_

_he gets out alive._

Tyler watched his every movement.

And then Josh was pulling himself forward and swinging in the hair.

And Tyler let him go, as he skated towards the set of stairs and his red hair Tyler so desperately wanted to get his hand on flew backwards with the velocity his body was going. And while watching Josh, Tyler couldn't stop thinking that he couldn't let him go like he was doing right now. He couldn't let his fears get in the way of his happiness. He couldn't let Josh go just because of some stupid self conscious that stopped him from actually behaving properly around his long time crush and love of his life.

But then Josh was in the air. Flying over the stairs, flipping his skateboard beneath his feet and falling down.

Tyler didn't want to see it, but couldn't bring himself to look away, hypnotized by the piece of wood falling on the ground with a thud that echoed all around the park.

And then...

Josh was landing perfectly back above it, struggling but successfully managing to keep his balance steady. And then a loud cheer erupted from the crowd, surrounding Tyler's ears and Josh was breathing heavily and his friends were running up to him and lifting him up on their shoulders, Josh's name on everyone's lips. Josh finally broke into a thin smile of relief and laughed, probably still not believing he had done it.

Tyler smiled to himself, letting the victory name fill his ears. His heart skipped a beat when Josh's gaze almost fell on his own, when he glanced at his direction.

But it couldn't have happened. There were so many people there. He couldn't had actually seen Tyler's face.

Nonetheless, Tyler was almost sure he had seen the words 'see you later' on Josh's lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering what Jish did, here's the video 
> 
> http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pKbqtnVKaiE
> 
> (it's the first trick)
> 
> And yeah I know it looks impossible and even I think it is but hey, I'm a hardcore skateboarding fan and Don Nguyen keeps surprising me. Besides, I couldn't get Josh to do a simple Ollie and win the shit, right? So yeah, Joshua did a mind blowing huge kickflip over gap. Luv u


	15. A Big Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahoy people
> 
> I want this to make you happy
> 
> Please be happy
> 
>  
> 
> (Still tueeeesday)
> 
>  
> 
> Jesus this one is long...

Tyler wasn't sure what was better:

The fact that Josh had asked him to stay after the competition so they could hang out.

Or the the fact that Josh had asked him to stay after the competition so they could hang out to celebrate the now certain victory.

And to say Tyler was nervous about these said facts would be like saying Tyler didn't have exactly 32 portraits of Joshua Dun on his sketchbook.

Because Tyler really wasn't nervous.

He wasn't nervous about spending time with Josh that wasn't tutoring obligation or occasionally bumping into him on the halls or accidentally being knocked out by Josh's skateboard and being offered company to walk home. No. He wasn't nervous about hanging out with Josh because the guy had willingly asked him to.

And being completely and utterly honest and with not even a hint of sarcasm, Tyler was definitely not nervous.

No.

He was petrified.

Because what if Josh suddenly changed his mind and chose to celebrate with his friends? With that blonde girl?

What if he thought Tyler was a waste of time and never show up?

What if Tyler made a fool out of himself as always, but actually seem crazily obsessed and a maniac who desperately wanted to bang Joshua William Dun?

What if Tyler was so awkward that he would scare him off?

Or worse,

what if Josh saw _the sign_?

And considering how _helpful_ his friends usually were, always giving him small words of _support_ like 'Don't crap your pants when you see him.' and 'He's gonna think you're a creep if you keep drooling over your pasta like that.', they seemed very leaned towards the idea of calming him down.

Because it wasn't like he had just completely humiliated himself by asking _Joshy_ to go with him to the talent show _in a sign_.

And the thought of actually hanging out with Josh, again, willingly and not forcefully, to practice every few days they had until the show was driving him nuts.

And the fact that to do this, Tyler had to show Josh a part of his mind no one besides his friends and mom (even if very little and limitedly) knew about, put him in a wrecking scale of nerves.

And despite the countless roll of eyes and sighs that had escaped Tyler's lips for the last week, he was 10% grateful for his friends' failed attempts of showing him it would be fine.

In all honestly, part of them couldn't really care less.

"Stop crying, Joseph. I got bigger problems." Jenna whined, pointing to her white pants that were full of popcorns attached to it because Mark couldn't keep his hands safely on his lap and just had to spill the entire box of popcorn on Jenna.

So Tyler simply ignored their argument, putting his hands in his pockets and leaning back on the door of the park's lockers room.

After the competition, Josh and his friends had been carried around the park to be congratulated, holding and kissing the new trophy in their possession. Tyler had decided to wait for Josh outside the lockers room, seeing the group of skater friends leaving the park, since they hadn't agreed on a place to meet. He had caught a glimpse of Josh and the blond girl laughing and holding on to each other all the way out.

His stomach growled as he remembered it.

Tyler rested his head on the door, watching Jenna angrily throw the popcorns to Mark's face as she pulled them out of her pants one by one.

"Could you please knock it off?" Tyler interrupted them "I'm kind of getting an existential crisis here, if you don't mind."

Jenna sighed and popped the apparently last popcorn out of his jeans and threw it to Mark, somehow landing on his left eye. Mark winced, covering his eye with his hands, cursing her under his breath. She muttered an innocent but almost fake sorry before turning to Tyler.

"What?"

Knowing his friend, Tyler wasn't taken aback by her coldness and careless tone. He slid down the door and onto the ground, pulling his knees up against his chest, fixing his gaze on the horizon.

"Joshua Dun might have a girlfriend." The words came out easily than he actually thought they would, but still craved him harder than expected. He licked his lips, taking out his sunglasses from over his head and putting them on his face.

Jenna tilted her head to the side, confused. "A girlfriend? What do you mean?"

Tyler sighed again. "A girlfriend." He repeated, not actually wanting to give away any more information.

Jenna kicked Tyler's foot, making him look at her. "Who?"

Tyler shrugged, picking some rocks and throwing them to the ground. "Some short blonde chick... I... I don't know."

Jenna blinked, looking at him as he lazily threw rocks at his own feet. Tyler gulped, aware of being given full attention by the girl and suddenly feeling very vulnerable under her gaze. Since he didn't dare to look up at her, for a moment Tyler thought she had turned her back and ignored him because of how quiet she was, until a snort caught him startled, followed by a burst into giggles than soon grew to hysteric laughs. Tyler opened his mouth, wanting to ask what was happening but closed it instead, letting her calm down first.

"Oh my God" She breathed, putting a hand on her chest where her heart was bumping hardly. "You got it so bad." Jenna grinned. She then turned to Mark, who was still wiping his red eye. "Yo Mark" she pointed her thumb at the confused teenager sat on the ground "Tyler got it so bad." She said loudly, breaking in another fit of giggles.

"Of course he did, Jenna, the guy's totally wrecked." Mark responded, chuckling with her, but then quickly winced as soon as his eyes squinted.

Tyler frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jenna smiled, shaking her head and making a tsk sound with her tongue. "Oh sweetie..." She softly giggled one more time, wiping a tear that had fallen in the middle of her fit. "Why do you keep denying that you've fallen hard?"

Tyler crunched his nose, avoiding her eyes. He wasn't denying it. At least not to himself. He was very aware of his undying love for the winner of the skateboard competition, but he just wasn't capable of saying it out loud. Almost like if he did, it would not be true anymore.

"I'm not!" Tyler then argued, pouting and throwing her a small rock that landed on her knee.

Jenna glared at him, dusting off her white jeans angrily. "Back off, Joseph, these are new." She growled.

"You seriously are stupid, Tyler." Mark said, walking up to them with a red eye. He stood by Jenna's side, putting a hand in his pockets while he used to other to raise his finger and point it at Tyler.

"I would say you're the stupidest human being on this planet if I didn't know Mark." Jenna crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows at Tyler, a barely noticeable smirk on her lips.

Mark glared at her for a second before bending down and fill his hand with dirt that he immediately threw to Jenna's treasured new white jeans. Jenna gasped in horror, widening her eyes. She slowly turned her head to his smirking face that soon faded and Tyler could see smoke coming out of her ears as she let her arms fall by her sides, hands curling up into fists.

Tyler was trying to hold back his laughs while his friends fought but then a loud startled scream replaced the giggles when the door Tyler had been leaning against was abruptly opened, causing him to fall and hit his back on the hard floor of the lockers room.

"Shit, Tyler." A voice cursed above him. Tyler looked up to see Josh looking down at him with a concerned expression. Feeling his head slightly pound, Tyler still chuckled.

"Have we met this way, Joshy?"

Josh visibly relaxed and let out a long breath he had been apparently holding and he too chuckled with him, shaking his head and offering him a hand that Tyler gladly accepted, grinning.

"Such a nerd, Ty." Josh laughed quietly, pulling Tyler up. Tyler yelped when he crashed with Josh's unfortunately clothed chest when he got back on his feet and he instinctively grabbed Josh's arms for support, gulping when he realized the read haired's hard biceps were under his grip. Managing to slightly shrug the feeling off, Tyler calmly backed away, standing in front of Josh.

Josh smiled at Tyler, and a warm and cozy feeling built up in Tyler's chest, before he turned to Jenna and Mark. "Hey guys." He waved with the same smile.

Mark, who had been trying to keep his distance from Jenna, nodded at Josh. "What's up?"

Jenna, on the other hand, too occupied with glaring at Mark, simply gave Josh thumbs up, not even bothering to look at him.

Josh blinked confused at the pair, looking questionably at Tyler who just shrugged and shook his head, silently telling him it was not worthy. Josh crunched his nose up and Tyler tried to avoid the nose ring moving.

"Ok well, are you going to say something to the executant of the winning trick?" Josh smirked, cockily pointing at himself.

Tyler widened his eyes.

_Shit. How could you forget, you asshole?! You're such an asshole._

_What are you going to say now?_

_Such an asshole..._

Tyler fidgeted with his fingers and the hem of his t-shirt for a second, just looking at Josh with his eyes still wide open and biting his lower lip. He opened his mouth to talk but nothing came out. So he did the first thing that came to his mind and quickly threw himself to Josh and wrapped his arms tightly around his neck, pressing they're bodies close. Josh was taken aback at first, and Tyler felt embarrassed and regretful when he didn't feel him hug back. He was about to pull away, awkwardly, when Josh's strong arms curled around his waist, pulling him even closer if possible, and Tyler felt Josh's chin softly rest on his shoulder. He blushed madly, reaching up for Josh's ear and quietly breathing "Congratulations, Joshy.", before hiding his face on Josh's shoulder, tightening his arms.

"Thanks, Ty." Josh replied, running his fingers across Tyler's back soothingly and Tyler felt him smile.

Tyler happily sighed, closing his eyes and feeling the warmth of the guy consume him. He needed to memorize everything, from Josh's fresh minty smell to how the strong hard muscles felt around his boney frame.

Tyler realized the hug couldn't last forever when he felt Josh slowly pull away. And he was pretty sure smoke was already coming out of his face because of how hot he felt and he couldn't drop the stupid smile off his face. Buy it was ok, because Josh was smiling too, but not looking like an idiot.

"You guys are killing me with your cuteness." Mark playfully yelled, throwing his head back to the sky and then looking at the two happy boys with a teasing grin. "Are you going to do anything else besides acting all lovey dovey?"

Tyler bit his lip, timidly looking at Josh who shrugged, laughing. "Yeah sure. Just a minute though." He walked inside the lockers room to come back a minute later, holding his skate. He put his hand on Tyler's shoulder, carefully pulling him forward with him. "Come on, Tyler, let's go. Bye guys, it was nice to see you"

Tyler took a deep breath, nodding at Josh and walking with him, turning around to wave goodbye to his friends. Mark started making kissy faces and Jenna winked at him. Tyler immediately looked straight ahead, flushed.

"Some friends you have there..." Josh chuckled, raising his eyebrows.

Tyler laughed too, nodding in agreement. "Yeah I love them and all but they're pretty annoying, I don't know how I even keep being friends with them." He shrugged.

"I feel the same way about mine." Josh replied, sighing. "I question my sanity every day."

Tyler laughed.

"What are you laughing at?" Josh questioned, trying to sound offended, but Tyler only giggled louder. "I'm serious! Like, for example, Pete bought us matching bright orange latex overalls to wear to the competition today! Latex!"

Tyler burst out laughing then, covering his mouth with his hand, picturing the show. Though now the image of Josh wearing a latex suit tightly glued to his body was stuck on his head. His torso would be clearly defined, his thighs would pump out everytime he moved, his perfect round butt that Tyler so wanted to slap, not to talk about the fact that would be his dick.

"I mean, I have to admit, Debby looked fine as hell, but the others and I just seemed over all ridiculous." Josh shook his head at the thought.

Hearing the feminine name made Tyler's stomach twist. He wondered if that was the blonde's name.

"Who's uh who's Debby?" He asked quietly, too embarrassed with his own question.

_Ok Tyler, when we get home, I'm going to wash your mouth with pepper and then glue it._

Josh's grin didn't make Tyler warm this time, for some reason.

"Debby's just the coolest girl I know."

Tyler was about to faint.

"We're pretty close, almost never sleeping in our own house since we're always having sleepovers."

The sun is getting blurry.

"Yeah our parents weren't exactly cool with it, but we always did and got what we wanted. So 5 years later and Debby is still not pregnant."

_Call... 911... ple-... please..._

"I think it would be weird to put a baby inside your best friend though..."

_Oh_

_Best friend_

_They're best friends then..._

"Yeah" Josh laughs at Tyler "Yeah we are."

_Shit_

_Did I say that out loud?_

_Oops?_

"No, sorry." Tyler quickly apologized, feeling his hands start to sweat and he put them inside his pockets. "I just thought you were-"

"Dating?" Josh finished for him, and Tyler nodded, no looking at him. "Yeah, a lot of people think that, but no, we're not. I know sometimes we may look like we are, but we're not... We're just pretty tight."

"Oh"

Tyler curled his fingers inside his pockets and then relaxed them the best he could. He could feel Josh's shoulder sporadically bump his and he looked down at their feet, finding Josh's red Nike shoes very interesting.

_Maybe I'll spare the girl's life._

_For now..._

They fell into silence. Tyler couldn't figure whether it was a confortable or awkward one, since Josh seemed walking peacefully by his side while Tyler nervously nibbled at his bottom lip, counting his own steps one by one and allowing Josh to take him to wherever they were heading.

"Where are we going?" Tyler heard himself ask. He finally looked at Josh and saw him faintly smirk at his direction.

_Oh God, don't do that, Josh, my heart aches._

"It's a surprise." Josh simply said.

_Uh... Honey, this is starting to look like a date._

_Don't get my hopes up or I seriously might kiss you right now, right here._

"Aww come on, why?" Tyler wined, honestly bothered that Josh wouldn't tell him.

But Josh just bumped his own shoulder with Tyler's, this time on purpose. "Shush, Joseph."

Tyler prepared himself to argue but Josh stopped walking, making Tyler do the same, and just lifted his index finger to Tyler's lips, giving him a warning look. "Shh" Tyler widened his eyes at Josh first but then twisting them so they were both placed on the finger brushing his lips.

Tyler felt the urge to just wrap his lips around Josh's finger and suck it.

_Yeah to get that finger nice and wet before you f-_

_Oh my God, Tyler_.

Much to Tyler's disappointment, Josh took his finger out soon and turned forward to keep walking. Tyler stared at his back for a moment before reminding himself how to walk so he could follow Josh closely. They kept walking until, five minutes later, Josh grabbed Tyler's upper arm. "We're almost there." He told him, pulling him with him as he turned to a corner. They entered a dark alleyway, where the sun didn't hit due to the high buildings surrounding the area. Tyler instantly frowned at the sight, instinctively fearing for his own life. But he trusted Josh, so he kept going, trying to keep as closer as possible to the skater.

Probably sensing his insurance, Josh squeezed Tyler's arm firmly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to kidnap you or rape you or something."

Tyler nodded. "Yeah, yeah I know."

_It wouldn't be rape if I enjoyed it though..._

Josh took a sudden turn to the right and the boys entered a house. Tyler found himself inside an old record store blasting Led Zeppelin and smelling like old but immortal talent and success. Tyler looked around in awe at the countless vinyl's and CD's placed all around. A person could easily get lost in here with so many things to see. He spotted some instruments at the end of room. The walls were peeling off, covered in posters, flags and framed guitar pics, drum sticks and t-shirts. The store definitely screamed Josh Dun wherever you looked at.

"So this is my safe heaven." Josh grinned, inhaling deeply.

Tyler couldn't help but grin back, looking around him.

"Those are the drums that helped me find the real me." Josh pointed to a set of worn out drums across the room, next to the pianos and guitars. "I taught myself how to play." Josh explained.

"And he sucked at it." A voice snuck from behind them and Tyler immediately turned around, eyes landing on a man with dark air falling on his eyes, a Metallica record on one hand and a dusty pink cloth on the other.

"Pretty much." Josh shrugged, looking from him to Tyler and than back to the guy.

"Got Alex Jones' butt kicked this time, Dun?" The man smirked, cleaning the record before putting it on the shelf. He threw the cloth over his shoulder and went behind the counter.

"With that kickflip." Josh said proudly, turning around to follow him, putting his elbows on the counter and leaning towards it. Tyler followed him and stood by his side.

The guy widened his eyes. "No way."

Josh clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. "Yes way."

"Man!" The guy laughed, going over the counter to give Josh a quick hug. "Congrats! We gotta celebrate!"

Pulling away, Josh put his hand on Tyler's shoulder, pulling him closer. "This is Gerard." Josh pointed to the man with the proud look on his face. "He owns this place with his brother Mikey and I've known them since I broke into the store to crash those drums."

Gerard laughed, holding out a hand that Tyler politely shook. "I'm Tyler."

"Nice to meet you, man." Gerard smiled. "Did you see Josh on the competition?"

Tyler nodded, taking a brief look a Josh before turning back to Gerard. "Yeah, he was great." Tyler switched his weight from one foot another. "I don't know anything about skating, but I can say Josh got me awestruck."

Gerard chuckled, sending Josh a small discrete knowing look. "Yeah he's like that. Leaves people _breathless_." Not taking his eyes of Josh, his smirk grew noticeable and Tyler followed his gaze to Josh, finding him lightly flushed. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion "But how was the kickflip?" Gerard turned back to Tyler. But then straightened himself, looking confused at Josh. "Wait, why the fuck did you do the kickflip?"

"Alex was angry because the judge gave Brendon the highest score on the freestyle round which put us in the lead." Josh explained, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "So he started demanding for a recount. And Debby got me to do the trick."

"That girl's crazy."

Josh widened his eyes, agreeing. "Yeah, she is." He wiped the inexistent dust out of the wooden counter. "But she got us the first place."

"No" Tyler suddenly spoke, shaking his head. "You did." He pointed at Josh. "It was you who did the trick, not her." Instead of talking, Josh smiled warmly. Tyler felt it was safe to continue. "And Jesus Christ, Josh, I honestly thought you were going to die."

At that Josh and Gerard looked at each other and laughed. "But I didn't." Josh grinned sheepishly and Tyler rolled his eyes, playfully punching Josh's arm. Josh faked hurt and punched Tyler back, making him laugh.

"Oh come on, guys, I wanna laugh too." A voice interrupted them. A tall skinny guy, quite similar to Gerard, walked to his side.

"Hey Mikey." Josh greeted him.

"Joshua Dun" Mikey smacked the back of Josh's head. "Haven't seen you in a while, what have you been up to? I thought you had forgotten about me."

Josh gasped, putting a hand on his chest and gripping his The Front Bottoms t-shirt. "I would never!" Mikey just tsked him, grabbing the pink cloth from his brother's shoulders and throwing it to Josh's face. Tyler bit off a laugh, covering his mouth with a hand. Josh took the cloth and threw it back at Mikey, who barely dodged it. "I've been busy with school and skating. And I got one more person to tutor." Josh pointed to Tyler. "So my schedule's filled." He gave them an apologetic look.

"Well, Mikey, this Tyler. Tyler, Mikey. Ok, you've been introduced." Josh rushed Tyler to the other side of the store, waving his hand at the brothers. "Tyler and I are going to hang out back there for a while, leave us alone."

Josh pushed Tyler past the instrument area to a door hidden behind a shelf. The division was much different from the actual store, chillier and cozier. There was a keyboard next to a set of much newer drums than the ones outside, 4 different types of guitars and one bass up against the wall on the corner and 4 stand up microphones. The floor was covered in wires connecting with stereos, instruments and microphones. On the other side of the room sat a big worn out blue couch that had clearly been there for a while, since it was covered in stains and ripped at some parts, it was facing a table with a TV, a DVD player and a playstation on which a Mario Kart box was opened. The walls were padded with some sound-proofing.

_I'm totally going to fuck Josh here..._

"This is where my friends and I hang out when we're not skating. We're all musical nerds so it's perfect for us. We have jam nights until 4 in the morning, order some pizza, play video games..." Josh shrugged, throwing himself on the couch.

Tyler sat next to him, sinking in the couch unexpectedly and making a small sound of surprise. "Sounds fun."

Josh nodded. "I was actually thinking we could jam too." He looks at Tyler hopefully. "Since, you know, you play the piano and I the drums."

Tyler bit his lip, chuckling lightly and inspecting the two instruments across the room. He looked back at Josh with doubtful eyes. "Drums and piano?"

"Yeah man, come one, it would be so punk rock."

Tyler chuckled again, biting his lip harder, fixing his eyes on the keyboard over Josh's shoulder. "I... I don't know."

"Oh come on Tyler, it would be so cool."

Tyler kept his eyes on the keyboard.

_Tyler_

_Tyler, you can do this._

_You want Josh to go to the talent show with you, don't you?_

_Then suck it up._

Tyler felt himself nodding and Josh's grin swallowed all his face.

_Oh God, Josh, let me kiss you._

In a blink, Josh stood up, causing Tyler to sink even deeper on the couch and Josh laughed at Tyler's attempt to get up as well for being so drowned into the couch. Josh offered him a hand and Tyler took it. Josh pushed him up and then dragged him to the instruments without letting go of Tyler's hand and curling his fingers with his. Tyler's heart was jumping on his chest and Tyler was pretty sure it would spill and - God - _I'm going to throw up_. Josh led Tyler to the keyboard and pulled the chair for him to sit down, pushing it forward like a gentleman. Tyler blushed, not even capable of thanking.

After making sure Tyler had everything he needed (that the keyboard was turned on, that the sound was not too loud but not too low, the suspending pedal was correctly connected and on a place Tyler's foot could reach, pulling out a water bottle from the mini fridge Tyler hadn't noticed behind the door and putting it on the floor next to the keyboard...), Josh finally sat in front of the drums, swinging a drumstick on his right hand the way Mark had wanted to do for as long as Tyler remembered.

"Just play anything" Josh told him, drumming a quick rhythm first "I'll catch up."

Tyler nodded, understanding, barely hearing Josh mumble 'hopefully' under his breath. Tyler took a deep long breath, putting his shaky hands on the keys. He played an experimental major C chord at first.

_Should I play one of my songs or simply improvise?_

Biting his lip, he played another chord, this time a minor sharp F. With a sigh, he started combining a set of four chords in the same tune, playing them in different orders and casually adding a fourth note. Soon he was playing a soft melody that Josh was experimentally drumming too. The melody slowly grew to a major tune and that's when Josh finally came up with the perfect rhythm. Tyler drowned himself into the sound, letting it invade his body. He hit the keys harder and passionately, wanting to sing his lungs out until he had no voice left. So before he could stop himself, he was playing a familiar song and spilling familiar words out of his mouth.

And Josh was beating the crap out of the drums, giving all he got. Tyler let his his gaze travel to Josh, to see him with his eyes closed, bobbing his head and upper body with the rhythm, and, for a moment, Tyler forgot the lyrics and stopped singing, staring at Josh. Soon, even his fingers lost themselves in the boy with read hair and the melody came to an abrupt unplanned end, leaving the beats echo alone. Josh opened his eyes, realizing the music was gone and stopped as well.

He looked at Tyler with a confused look. "What happened? Is there something wrong? It was so good!"

Tyler shook his head, smiling timidly. "No, everything's fine. I just..." He paused, playing another chord. Then he looked back up to Josh. "I-"

"It was really good, Tyler, I mean it." Josh cut him off, placing the sticks on the drums. "And those lyrics... you... I..."

Tyler's body shivered.

_He didn't like it._

_He thought they were stupid._

_He's gonna think I'm weird._

"Tyler... It was amazing."

Tyler gasped softly to himself, looking up at Josh with wide eyes, but Josh was already up and walking up to Tyler, bending down on his knees.

"Really? You think so?" Tyler asked quietly, looking down into Josh's brown eyes.

"Of course I do, Ty." Josh took Tyler's hand in between his, rubbing small circles with his thumb on Tyler's palm. "I understand."

Tyler smiled, his heart beating a million miles per second. He felt his eyes water and Josh chuckled lightly, wiping his thumb over Tyler's cheek when a tear rolled down. Tyler laughed back, sniffing a bit and a smile grew wider on his face.

Josh then smirked, pushing Tyler by playfully punching his chest.

"We are so gonna kill it in the talent show."


	16. twenty one pilots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> School started which means less quick updates... I'll try my best though, because you all deserve it.
> 
> It's wednesday and thursday here.
> 
> Luv u

Never in Tyler's life had a doorbell looked so damn terrifying.

And there were in fact a lot of scaring bells: the bell of his parents' front neighbor's house, Ms. Kingsley, a 74 year old widow who refused to accept that same term and who spent her days looking out the window and yelling at anyone who went anywhere near her precious roses; the bell of his piano teacher's apartment that he dreaded to go every Friday; the doorbell of his own parents; the doorbell of Jenna's house...

But not even those were as frightening as Joshua William Dun's.

The day before, when Tyler was crushed against the insecurities his mind had been creating about how Josh would never like anything of Tyler's and Josh had then objectively told him they were "so going to kill it at the talent show", Tyler had numbly agreed without thinking any deep and gone home 10 minutes after they had finished playing Mario Kart and totally kicking Josh's butt on the last round because Josh had been distracted by Tyler's "cute lil' face". And only when Tyler's phone rang the next day, not letting Tyler wrap his mouth around Josh's dick and rudely waking him up from his so needed after school nap, did Tyler realized that Josh knew in fact about the unmade proposal of participating in the contest. Re-reading Josh's text for the fifth time, Tyler considered the fact that his poor attempts of getting the sign out of Jenna's hands at the skateboarding contest might had been in vain because Josh could have indeed seen it. If that had been the case, Tyler was seriously considering joining the wrestling team that practiced on the gym next to the basketball court where Tyler sometimes escaped to. Maybe then he would get wanted results.

 

 

**Joshy <3, 4:26 pm **

**hey, ty :) come to my house in 30. we gotta rehearsal for the talent show**

 

A sound of pained excitement echoed in Tyler's ears and he jumped in his bed, realizing after that the girly squeal had came from his own mouth.

Seconds later, another beep sounded from his phone, followed by another text of Josh with his address.

Tyler nervously typed a reply. He bit his lip, looking at the digits typed on his cellphone screen.

_That looks a bit desperate, Tyler._

_Just a bit though..._

_..._

_Don't send that_.

He quickly moved his shaky thumb, aiming to the erase button. He clicked on it, waiting for the words to disappear from the typing box but frowned when it all stayed the same. He clicked on it again, but no apparent change. He clicked on the button several times. Panic started to settle in when he realized the phone wasn't giving him any signs of working. Sweat covered his face as he got to the point where he was frankly hitting on the sensitive screen with his index finger with all the strength he had. Suddenly the words finally got out of sight and he breathed out in relief, relaxing his shoulders and closing his eyes, head softly against the pillow. His phone went up and down, rested on his chest. Feeling it vibrate, Tyler curiously lifted the phone to his eyes.

 

**_Your message has been successfully sent_**.

 

Not knowing what to do, Tyler screamed, fumbling around and trying to leave his bed, only to fall out of it, wrapped in his old Toy Story bed sheets.

"Tyler?" His mom faintly called from down the stairs. "Honey, is everything ok?"

_No._

_Everything is not ok._

_It's not fucking ok._

Tyler looked horrified at the last blue box on Josh's conversation.

 

**Tyler, 4:37 pm**

**ok, joshy, cant wait! see ya ;)**

 

And it was now exactly five minutes past five.

The doorbell was not moving from its place and Tyler felt stupid by wishing that the bell grew legs and jumped out of the wall so Tyler could never ring it.

He was five minutes late.

He sighed, knowing he had no choice but to do press the goddamn button. So he did it, collecting his hand back quickly like he had just touched a dead frog in decomposition. Minutes later, the door was opened and a very much shirtless Josh appeared in front of him. He had messy hair, and his eyes were tired, looking like he had just woke up. Tyler realized that Josh had probably just did because Josh widened his eye at him and dropped his jaw, a faint blush appearing on his cheeks.

"Tyler! Oh my God, I'm so sorry."

Tyler wanted to scoff and roll his eyes.

_Sorry? Why would you be sorry?_

_I am so thankful for that body, man._

"I fell asleep, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, it's ok. We can do this later, I don't mind." Tyler smiled sadly and prepared himself to leave, but Josh got ahead of him by quickly grabbing his arm.

"No! Stay." He pulled Tyler inside and closed the door. "I'll just throw on a t-shirt and brush my teeth. Make yourself at home." He rushed to the stairs but stopped, looking back. "I won't take long, I promise. Five minutes."

With that, he ran up the stairs, leaving a lost Tyler in a big room.

Anywhere he looked screamed _money_. The door lead directly to the living room, that was probably bigger than Tyler and Mark's apartment. An enormous couch certainly made of some kind of real animal fur sat in front a white wall that Tyler found was to have the TV or other things projected on. Surrounded by black and red chairs, there was a long table where Tyler's entire family could easily sit around and even let out some free space. Candles were all across the division, and Tyler could smell the soft vanilla dominating the air. It was all so carefully organized in it's place that Tyler was afraid to move and accidentally ruin something.

His eyes caught the sight of a wall covered in framed pictures, some still in black and white, right above the table. Carefully not to touch anything, he hesitantly made his way to stand in front of the wall. They were mostly family pictures. Tyler recognized Josh in some of them, without any piercings, tattoos or colored hair. He then noticed also framed diplomas and certificates of contests, almost all of them with Josh's name or team on it: winner of the soccer championship 2013, second place in spelling contest 2006, the title of environment's best friend from Friends With Hands... the list went on and on, from the best party costume to his most recent one from the skateboarding competition.

A particular picture, though, appeared under Tyler's gaze: it was of a very young Josh, maybe five or six years old, missing two front teeth but with a smile bigger than his own face nonetheless. He was sitting in front of an old piano, with drumsticks in his hands held up to his face. A couple of guitars, one acoustic and the other electric, rested against the piano bench where he was sitting on and there were a few ukuleles hanging on the wall behind him. Tyler found himself smiling. It was like Josh was in his natural habitat.

He heard Josh's hurried steps down the stairs, but kept his eyes fixed on the picture. He didn't want to look away.

"My mom is an angel." Josh spoke, voice far from Tyler, meaning he was still walking down. "I specifically asked her to wake me up before she left. And what does she do? She lets me sleep." The voice gets closer and closer until Tyler is certain that Josh was standing just a few feet away. "Don't get me wrong, I would be thankful in any other day but today you were coming and of course I-" He paused, staying silent for an instant. "I've told mom to take that picture off the wall, but she never seems to listen."

Tyler turns to see Josh with a surprisingly plain black t-shirt, hair still messy but not looking like he had just woken up. "Why would you want to take it off?"

Josh shrugged, walking to stand by Tyler's side, brushing their shoulders together and crossing his arms against his chest. He looked up at the picture and Tyler did the same. "Look at me. I look ridiculous."

Tyler frowned, looking back at the boy. "No you don't." He shook his head. "You look..." He stops himself for a second before looking down and speaking in a lower tone. "cute."

"You think so?" Josh laughed.

Tyler looked up again and nodded. "Of course! And that smile is to die for."

At that, Josh threw his head back and squeezed his eyes, laughing. Tyler chuckled along, admiring the boy in front of his eyes.

_Josh?_

_Josh, can I kiss you?_

_Please let me kiss you._

_I want to kiss you._

"Anyway." Josh whipped a tear that was forming in his eye. "Come with me."

Tyler followed Josh to what looked like the basement. It wasn't as studio looking as the little room from the music store they had been the day before. There were only a set of drums next to a keyboard and a table with a computer and speakers.

"It's not much, but I think it'll work. I spend most of my time at the store so I don't need having much here." Josh explained. Tyler nodded, walking closer to the keyboard. He looked at Josh for permission, to which Josh quickly said "Go on!"

Tyler placed his book in front of him and sat on the bench, playing a few notes. Josh, on the other hand, went up to the drums.

"So do you have any song in mind?"

Tyler nibbled at his lower, opening the book and passing the pages gently one by one. He stopped at a particular one and stared at it for a while. He debated with himself whether that should be the one or not. Maybe it was too revealing, maybe it was too simple or to complex, it could be boring, it could be too loud... He blinked at the words nervously written with his sloppy handwriting. He heard Josh play a quick beat on his drums and in that moment he felt himself nod at Josh's previous question. That was the one.

 

* * *

 

Tyler could hear Mark in his mind everytime he looked at the sweaty shirtless Josh on the other side of the drums.

"Close your fucking mouth, Joseph, or I'm going to rip your jaw out of your goddamn face and you'll be drooling for the rest of your life."

And Mark's glare was always so overwhelming that Tyler actually believed in the threat and did his best to look away. But Mark wasn't there with them except in Tyler's mind in that moment, which made the threat nonexistent and without any consequences. Because Mark wasn't there to actually rip Tyler's jaw. So Tyler had no option but to feel his body dumbly react to every movement Josh made.

Tyler pressed his thighs tightly against each other and prayed for his stupid hormones to go back to normal and leave him alone because, Christ, he actually wanted to be focused on the song. But the only thing he could think about was how

_Josh looks so good playing drums... I wonder what he would look like against them..._

They had been practicing for a good couple of hours. Tyler had shown Josh the basic and superficial ideas and the lyrics while Josh tried to combine the right drum beats. They joined on the computer to set some special effects to fill the music, but the song was nowhere near finished yet.

"Tyler?" Josh said later after Tyler's mom called him to go home. Tyler had scoffed, making a mental note to apologize to Mark for being so dirty and loud so he could go back to their apartment and live his life independently.

Tyler tightened his arms around his book in his chest and looked up at Josh who was leaning against the side of the door. It was dark already and the moon was hidden somewhere in the sky so the only light illuminating them was the lamp above the door. It hit straight on Josh's features, lightening his bright skin and making the soft dark circles under his eyes stand out.

"Yeah?"

"I had a great time to today." Josh smiled, making the dark circles magically disappear almost completely.

Tyler smiled back, nodding his head. "Me too." He agreed.

"We just have one more thing to do." Josh grinned.

 

* * *

 

 

Tyler could see Josh sat on the side of the stairs in front of the school entrance. Black snapback turned to the back of his head, headphones on his ears, phone on his hand, gray Sum 41 t-shirt tightly wrapped around his defined torso, black ripped jeans around his strong long legs, black Vans on his feet.

He knew Josh was waiting for him.

However, his feet didn't move from behind a beat up blue car parked a few feet away from the school.

Seeing Josh distracted with whatever he was doing on his phone, Tyler could think of how much he wanted to quietly snick behind him and suddenly cover his eyes and just happily say "Guess who?". To which Josh would playfully reply "Hmm... I don't know... The pizza guy?".

"No" Tyler would giggle "Guess again!"

Josh would laugh his amazing warm laugh and place his hands above Tyler's. "Is it Tyler?"

Then Tyler would excitedly throw his arms around Josh's waist and snuggle his head between Josh's shoulder and the crook of his neck, kissing the skin lightly.

Josh would smile, pull his head up, turn around and kiss him full on the lips.

They would be a couple, Josh would take his (definitely not so innocent) v-card by fucking him him in the back of his extremely expensive BMW, they would finish high school, maybe go to college together, get married, adopt a kid or two, build a family and live happily ever after.

But no.

At that moment Tyler could only think:

_Holy shit._

Because,

_Holy shit, Josh and I are going to sign up for the talent show._

He couldn't bring himself to walk around the car and up the stairs. He can't even bring himself to move. Tyler is almost not breathing either.

He was totally feeling like a bride with cold feet.

He was starting to regret this. They would never make it. They were never going to win so why bother. People wouldn't like it. Just because Josh said he did, which Tyler couldn't know if it was 100% true because he wasn't inside Josh's fucking mind, it didn't mean at all that other people would enjoy it too.

Besides, he didn't know if he was actually capable of standing on stage and face a judging crowd by exposing himself.

_No._

_Nah ah._

_Nop._

_Nein._

_It was not happening_.

Tyler clutched the strips of his school bag, glancing at Josh who was now frowning and looking around. Tyler did the same, seeing that a small but significant crowd of tired students was surrounding the area.

_Maybe if I walk away now and blend in with them, Josh won't see me and I'll get out safely._

Tyler breathed in and started backing away slowly, eyes on Josh to see if he would look in his direction. He was so focused on the read haired boy that he didn't noticed he was in the middle of the road, until a car stopped suddenly just a few centimeters from his small waist. Tyler's breath caught up in his throat as he widened his eyes and turned his head slightly until he could look at the small gap between the car and him, realizing that not even his skinny hand could go through it completely. Terrified, his eyes wondered up to the driver, to see an angry kid sticking out his head from the window.

"Are you out of your mind? Get out the way, dude!"

Tyler opened his mouth to speak, even though he had no idea of what to say exactly, but no words come out, and he was stuck and frozen in his spot. The boy inside the car yelled at him again but it was all muffled sounds because _oh my fucking God, I could have fucking died_. The cars behind the aggressor were starting to horn at the situation and soon even the driver was pressing both his hands on the horn of the wheel, creating an endless painful scream.

Tyler was suddenly being engulfed in a slightly familiar embrace. He looksled down at a hand that his gripping his right shoulder and catches a rainbow of colors painted on the person's arm. He didn't need to be a wizard to tell that this person was in fact the one and only Joshua Dun.

Josh threw a couple of apologizes to the driver and waved his hands at the others before pushing Tyler safely to the other side of the road. Before Tyler could register what was happening, Josh was looking around his body, checking everywhere for scratches or bruises. Probably upon seeing everything was in its place, Josh gripped Tyler's head and bumped their foreheads together, looking into his eyes so deeply that Tyler thought Josh was actually staring at the real interior of his head.

"Are you ok?" Josh asked, slightly panicked.

Tyler nodded simply, looking at Josh's lips. They were so close. So goddamn close, he could just close the gap and-

"Jesus Christ, Tyler!" Josh backed away and slapped Tyler's cheek in an attempt to wake him up, but not enough to hurt. "Are you fucking crazy?!"

_Crazy for you, babe._

Tyler shook his head, biting his lip and avoiding Josh's eyes.

"Gosh, Tyler, you got me so scared! Don't ever do that again, Jesus!"

Tyler looked down at his feet, kicking an imaginary rock. "Sorry." He said mumbled.

Josh sighed, running his hands down his face. "It's ok." He said softly. "You're ok." He grabbed Tyler's wrist and turned to the road. "Let's just go." He looked both ways to check if there was any car coming and when he decided it was safe, his hand tightened around Tyler's wrist and both of them crossed the road in silence.

They entered the school and Tyler moved his arm so his hand was locked with Josh's. He looked briefly at Josh, looking for any sign of repulsion or rejection, but when he found Josh unfazed by the situation, Tyler decided to interlock their fingers together. He held his breath for a moment, still trying to read Josh's face. But Josh didn't look back at him. However, he felt Josh's hand move and he froze for a second, thinking he was going to pull away. What surprised him though, was that Josh got his thumb from under Tyler's to place it above it and lightly rub his skin. Tyler blushed, smiling down at their hands.

They stopped in front of a wall covered in papers with information about the school norms, future events, among other things and Josh furrowed his eyes, looking around for the talent show participation form.

"Tyler."

"Hmm?" Tyler looked to the paper where Josh's eyes were on. There was only one spot left to sign in. "Oh my God, Josh, we got lucky."

Josh agreed, nodding his head. Much to Tyler's disappointment, Josh let go of his hand and opened his bag, taking out a pen. He held it in front of Tyler's face and grinned "Wanna do the honors?"

Tyler nodded and accepted the pen. Writing the first letter, he realized it had red paint and he smiled to himself. He wrote what they had agreed on. When he finished, he stood back by Josh's side and the two happy boys admired the paper in front of them.

Nothing could suit them better.

In bright red letters, standing out from the others, at the bottom of the paper was written the "one more thing to do":

 

_**twenty one pilots** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm probably coming back to edit and fix this chapter...
> 
> It's 1 am and I have school tomorrow... i'm dying


	17. Writer's note

Hello dear readers! 

So... it's been like what? One year? Two? Ah well I'm very sorry. I hate it when writers just suddenly stop updating and here am I being na hypocrite. So I'm just here to say that I'm thinking about coming back, because I re-read this story and it made me angry that it wasn't finished. So it would mean the world to me if you did the wonderful and kind action of forgiving me and giving me a second chance. I can't promise frequent and regular uptades, but at least it will be completed some day.

So do I have your support?

Lots and lots of kisses. 

I'm sorry

Keep shining.


	18. FUCKING SORRY but new story announcement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SORRY

AHHHHHHH 

 

so

 

 

you must me really angry at me

 

well

 

sorry

 

i am

 

trully

 

trully 

sorry

 

So you know, I'm currently working on a new chapter to this but I am taking my time because I lost my inspirations, but I'm trying my best. I really am. You'll have a chapter as soon as I finish it. Promise.

 

Meanwhile, I'm working on another story. A short one, only a few chapters. It's an original work, so no fandoms related. But I hope you all check it and read it. It would mean the whole world to me! 

Here's the summary and the link of the story bellow. I love you all. Thanks for staying and still opening this story, even though you probably thought it was an update. I really love you all. 

God. I am so fucking sorry.

 

Thank you.

 

* * *

 

 

_"Did you know that when you call me Mel, you're actually calling me Honey in Portuguese?"_

_*_

_A story about a married couple struggling with life._

 

<https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000625?view_adult=true>


	19. 17. Insecurities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. I'm back.
> 
> Hello world.

“I don’t fucking get it.” Tyler heard Mark mumble, despite the sound of the basketball repeatedly jumping from his hand to the ground. He was struggling to get the ball from Tyler’s possession for what seemed like centuries. Suddenly, Tyler ran to the basket, took the ball in his hands, jumped and watched it successfully enter the net.

“I quit!” Mark screamed in defeat, throwing his arms up and letting his head fall back, looking at the shy, asking what wrong had he done to this world do deserve this. Tyler rolled his eyes, ignoring his friend and scored again, before catching the ball perfectly with his hands without any effort.

“You look like a fucking princess playing that shit!” Mark commented, dumbfounded.

Tyler shrugged, throwing the ball once again to the basket and, guess what, fucking scoring. Mark scoffed. “I don’t understand why you keep refusing to join the school’s basketball team. They could use natural talent for once.”

Tyler turned to his friend who was now opening a can of soda before swallowing the whole content in one gulp. He smiled happily, whipping the barely existent sweat out his forehead. He was behaving like he had just ran a fucking marathon, when, in reality, he hadn’t moved an inch to catch the ball.

“I’m a pipe cleaner, remember?” Tyler replied, annoyed, letting the ball roll in his finger flawlessly. Mark dropped his jaw at the sight.

“Fucking hell, dude.” He whispered, which made Tyler roll his eyes again and throw the ball to Mark to wake him up back to reality, the ball hitting his chest hard. Mark groaned, falling to the ground and crawling over his stomach. He still found to strength to bring his head up to glare at the pipe cleaner.

“What are you up to?” Jenna appeared out of nowhere, looking flawless in a yellow summer dress. She looked down at Mark and blinked, turning to Tyler with a questioning look. “You know what? I don’t even want to know.” She grabbed a can of soda out of the refrigerating bag a few feet away from Mark’s position on the ground. “So” she smirked after sipping the liquid and licking her lips. “Have you fucked Joshy yet?”

Tyler gasped and glared at her.

_Unfortunately, Josh hadn’t yet touched my pen-_

“Are you kidding me?” Mark scoffed, trying his best to get up, but falling back to the ground. He cursed his friend under his breath. “Tyler won’t get laid unless he makes the first move, because that clown haired guy is probably still figuring what he wants in the fuck menu: ass or vagina.”

A can half full of soda hit his head, also spilling the liquid over his face. He fell back on the ground, screaming like a girl. Jenna crossed her arms. “You are not helping, dumbass!” Tyler smiled at his girl friend softly, who offered him a sympathetic look. _That bitch wasn’t always a pain in the ass._

“So no sex.” Jenna looked at Tyler and suddenly gasped, widening his eyes. She ran up to him and grabbed his shoulders, making him let out an even more girly scream than Mark’s precious one. She stood dangerously close to Tyler’s scared face and screamed excitedly. If Tyler’s arms weren’t securely under her strong grip, he would have slapped her. “I SAW ‘TWENTY ONE PILOTS’ WRITTEN ON THE TALENT SHOW’S CONTEST’S SIGNING PAPER! IS THAT YOU?”

Oh

“Yep” Tyler simply replied, like it was no big deal, popping his lips at the ‘p’ sound.

“OH MY GOSH THIS IS GREAT NEWS!”

“It’s cool.” Tyler shrugged. Or tried to, since he was stuck under Jenna’s hands. Speaking of her, she looked like she wanted to murder him. Tyler furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. Wasn’t she supposed to be happy?

“Just that?” She looked at him astonished. “You are playing with Joshua fricking Dun at the school’s talent show and all you say is ‘ _It’s_ fucking _cool’_?” She left her mouth opened, starring at her friend.

Tyler sighed. He knew she was right. He should be jumping from excitement right now. He should be running in circles and screaming with his arms up to sky. He should be screaming at the top of his lungs, because

JESUS MOTHERFUCKER CHRIST

HE WAS GOING TO PLAY WITH JOSHUA DUN

AKA THE HOTTEST DRUMMER IN THE WHOLE FUCKING UNIVERSE

AND HE WOULD BE SEEING JOSH’S MUSCLES CLINCH AS HE HIT THOSE DRUMS HARD

AND

OH

MY

GOD

HE COULD ALSO TOTALLY BANG TYLER LIKE HE DID TO THOSE DRUMS

NICE AND HARD

But all that Tyler could think about was no longer Josh’s glorious body. He was scared to shit.

“I don’t think I’m ready to do this.”

Jenna blinked. “Are you kidding me? You’ve come this far, and you’re scared now?”

Tyler sighed. He was a weak pussy. Maybe now Josh would come around and fuck him, since he didn’t have the balls to do it. He was a complete pussy.

“What if people make fun of me?” Tyler whispered, avoiding Jenna’s eyes, blinking back the tears.

 _Pussy_.

“What if” he closed his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath “what if Josh regrets it?”

“Oh Tyler” Jenna wrapped his friend’s small body around her arms, rubbing the his back soothingly. “Don’t think like that. He won’t regret it.”

“How can you be so sure?” Tyler asked in a small weak voice.

“I just know so, buddy.” She assured him. “Has he ever let you down? Haven’t you played with him already? Did he say anything to put you down? He hasn’t, Tyler. He said it himself that he wanted to do this. So trust me, Tyler, he won’t regret it.”

Feeling a third hand rubbing his back, Tyler sighed, knowing it was Mark’s.

“I think you should talk to him right now.” Mark’s voice interrupted, with a proud voice.

Tyler turned to his stupid friend with a questioning look, seeing a smirk on the guy’s lips. He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Why?”

“Because” Mark, popped his lips before raising a hand holding a familiar cellphone “I called him.”

“ _Hey Ty!”_ A voice came through the phone’s speaker. “ _’Sup?_ ”

 _Fuck_.

Tyler widened his eyes in fear. “You monster. I fucking hate you. I’m going to strangle you to death with your own dick.” He glared at Mark.

“ _What? Ty? Wha…. Why? What did I do?_ ”

 

_Well_

_Fuck :)_


End file.
